


watching war made us immune

by allapplesfall



Category: Blindspot (TV)
Genre: Adoption, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - High School, Drug Abuse, Multi, Past Child Abuse, Suicidal Thoughts, Team as Family, Underage Drinking, give jane one too, give tasha zapata a damn hug, like literal adopted family, mayfair wont die i one-hundred percent promise you that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-19
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-07-15 23:08:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7242580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allapplesfall/pseuds/allapplesfall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They all thought that one day, they would just disappear.</p><p>Mayfair wasn't going to let that happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. pick it up, pick it all up

A cold gust of wind bit through Kurt’s jacket, nipping at his exposed neck. He turned up his collar to brace against it, but it didn’t do much good. New York winter was a hard thing to escape, especially when you were out collecting trash in it. Goddamn community service hours.

His bag was almost full and his hand was nearly numb by the time that the volunteer coordinator approached him. “Good job today, hon,” she said. “I can put your paperwork directly into school. Go home and warm up.”

“Thanks, ma’am,” he replied. “When’s the next work day?”

“Not for another few weeks.” She brushed her honey-blonde hair behind her ear, catching little melted snow droplets in the curls. “You should get an email reminder.”

“I’ll be there.”

“I _know_ you will, Kurt,” she laughed, clapping him on the shoulder. “You need the hours. Now run along home before your mother calls me asking why I kept her kid out long enough to get frostbite.”

He cracked a small smile back. “Have a good day, ma’am.”

Turning, he began the walk home, not looking forward to the ten blocks between him and his house. If only the streets weren’t so icy, he’d have felt safe enough to drive, but _no_. On another day, he might have called Mayfair and asked for a ride, but she was staying late at the office.

So he was stuck walking in the snow, feeling the crunch beneath his boots and grimacing at every person he walked past. He hoped he wasn’t supposed to pick up Edgar after practice, because at this rate he would be out here for another half hour.

It was at the corner of block four that he heard the sound.

The sound wasn’t particularly loud or distinctive, but something about it caught Kurt’s immediate attention. What was it? The squeak of a rusty hinge? A whiny engine? A puppy? It was high-pitched, strung out, trembling in the chill air. The noise cut Kurt to the bone. Where was it coming from?

He spun in place, nearly slipping on the slippery curb. It wasn’t coming from the parking lot, or the busy street, so it must have been—the alley.

And there, in between the dumpster and a drift of black and yellow snow, was a small figure curled in on itself and whimpering. As he got closer, Kurt could make out a head of black hair and a stained grey long-sleeved shirt. Not nearly enough clothing for the weather surrounding them.

“Hey,” he said gently. “Are you okay?”

The figure looked up, and he saw that she was a girl probably around Patterson’s age. She huddled into herself, her teeth chattering. Her green eyes were hazy, as if they couldn’t quite process him. There was a black smudge on her neck, but too much of it was hidden by her shirt for him to be able to tell what it was. She looked terrified.

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he said carefully. “I promise.”

She put her hands up in front of her face. Her eyes peeked between her fingers.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Her brows furrowed in confusion. “I...” she whispered, shaking her head. “ _No, no, no_.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. _I don’t know_.” She was so lost, porcelain cracking before his eyes. He wanted to put his arms out and touch her, comfort her, but he remembered how Patterson and Tasha were when Mayfair first brought them home. He didn’t want to spook her.

“Shhh, that’s okay,” he was saying things too gruffly, but he didn’t know how to smooth his voice out. “You’re okay. I’m Kurt. You must be cold, huh?”

She eyed him warily. After a beat, her survival skills must have overridden her suspicion, because she nodded.

“You can have my jacket. It’s warm. My mom bought it for me for Christmas.” He slipped it off of his shoulders and laid it on the pavement between them. “Go ahead.”

Fingers shaking so hard she hardly had the coordination to slip her arms through the sleeves, she did as he prompted. It didn’t stop the shivering, but he figured it had to have helped somewhat. The jacket dwarfed her thin frame.

“I’m gonna call my mom, okay? She works with the FBI,” Kurt explained. “She’ll help you.”

“Stay?”

The word broke Kurt’s heart. “Yeah,” he said. “Of course I’ll stay.”

He pulled out his phone and speed-dialed Mayfair.

“Mom? Mom?”

“Kurt?” Mayfair crackled on the line, sounding worried. He only called her Mom on the rare occasions, normally when he was hurt or upset—he felt bad for worrying her, but this was important. “Is something wrong?”

“Uh, kinda. Can you come pick me up?”

“Where are you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m not hurt, but there’s—there’s this girl and she’s…can you come pick me up? I’m in the alley on the corner of James and View.”

“I’ll be right there. Should I come official or casual?” In the background, he heard her telling her subordinate to cancel the rest of her meetings for the day.

The girl in front of him was swimming in his jacket and chewing on her lip. She had a bruise darkening one cheek—how had he missed it?

“Official.”

“I’ll be there in ten. Want me to stay on the line?

“Can I put you onto the girl?”

“Hang on, first describe this girl. What’s her name? What’s happened? I’m getting in the van now.”

“I found her in an alley. She’s really out of it, can’t remember her name. Didn’t have a jacket or anything. I think—“ He checked the girls eyes as best he could. Sure enough, her pupils were blown wide. “Yeah, I think she’s been drugged.”

“Give her the phone.”

He held it out to her, but the girl shied away.

“She won’t take it, Mom.” There was a current of _what do I do_ underlying his tone, because he was _so_ not qualified for this kind of thing.

“That’s okay, Kurt. Listen to me: you’re pointing north.”

“Pointing north.” He took a deep breath. “Okay. How far are you?”

 “Still a few minutes. Just talk to her, Kurt. You’ve got a good gut; follow it.”

“Should I hang up?”

“You said James and View? The alley by the K-mart?”

“Yeah.”

“You can hang up. See you, kid.”

“Bye, Mom.”

Pocketing his phone, Kurt focused all his attention back on the girl. Her eyes still wandered like they couldn’t quite focus on him. She still looked scared. He wanted to fix that.

So he did as Mayfair said: he talked more in those ten minutes than he usually did in a day. He told her about coming to live with Mayfair when he was eight, how scared and angry he had been. He told her about Patterson coming the year after—how she had immediately integrated herself into his idea of his family. How Mayfair had sworn not to adopt another kid until her unit picked up a ten-year-old punk—Edgar—who’d been shot in real bad, and she decided to take him in too. How, only two years after that, she’d found _another_ girl, and had just given up. How his cousin, Sarah, lived five blocks away and made incredible brownies. How his best friend was a girl named Allie, who he was pretty sure kept stealing his beers, because a couple went missing from every six pack he opened. 

How he hoped this girl would be his friend too, when she was okay again.

At this point, his rambling monologue was interrupted by Mayfair’s arrival. She tipped his chin towards hers, checked his face, ruffled his short hair, and smiled reassuringly. Only after that did she turn her attention to the girl.

“Hey, sweetheart,” Mayfair said. “I’m Kurt’s mom. Do you remember your name?”

The girl shook her head, seemingly terrified at the arrival of new people.

“You feel confused, huh? That’s fine. Do you remember how you got here?”

“Oscar.”

“He your dad?” Mayfair asked. She waved at the FBI agents she’d brought with her, signaling them to stay back.

The girl shook her head, but refused to elaborate.

“We’re gonna take you to the hospital, okay? That’ll make you feel a lot better. Do you wanna get in the car with Kurt?”

She nodded. Her eyes started to lose focus. Mayfair took action fast, directing people and calling orders.

Kurt ended up in an FBI van on the way to the hospital, sandwiched in between two agents, caring way too much about a girl he’d known for less than half an hour. It was a long drive to the hospital.

 

-

 

The bottle hung loosely from her fingers, bumping along the ridges of her bedcovers. It was nearly empty; she had to tip it nearly upside down to get any beer into the neck. She played with it. She swung the bottle back and forth. After about a minute, she gave in and downed the rest.

Tasha didn't really like the taste of beer. It had too low of an alcohol content to be worth the way it clung to the back of her throat, let alone the underage drinking violation. But it was what Kurt had, and he never noticed a bottle or two going missing. She just had to throw out her empty ones in the next-door neighbor's trashcan to stop Mayfair from finding out and whooping her ass.

It wasn't healthy, what she was doing. She knew that. Tasha was entirely aware of what a mistake she was making, turning herself into an alcoholic at sixteen. What did it matter, though? She was already a fuck-up. And it wasn't like anyone cared enough to stop her.

She tapped the bottom of the bottle to try and get the last few drops out and onto her tongue. What if she just shattered the bottle on the floor? The pieces would be sharp enough. If she were already dead, she wouldn’t have to drink herself to death.

There was a knock on her door. "Tasha?" a shaking voice called. "Can I come in?"

 _Patterson_. Tasha bit back a groan.

"Yeah, in a sec," she answered, stashing the beer under the bed. She popped a breath mint and hoped it would be enough. “Come on in.”

The door inched open carefully, and a small blonde head peeked through. The girl connected to it did a quick sweep of the room, blue eyes darting from corner to corner, then dropped her gaze to the floor and shuffled over to the foot of the bed. She fiddled with the bottom of her sweater nervously—as if Tasha would ever turn her away.

“C’mere,” Tasha said, swallowing her own exhaustion. She opened her arms and let Patterson fold into them. Patterson liked Tasha’s hugs; Tasha hugged tight.

“Overload?” she asked.

Patterson shrugged in a way that meant yes.

“Headphones?”

She shook her head no.

“Heavy blanket?”

Another no.

“Stars?”

“Yes, please,” Patterson whispered.

So Tasha pulled them both back until they were staring at the ceiling, tucked into each other like quotation marks. Above them, spread between the light bulbs and plaster, was a large poster of constellations. It had been the first thing Tasha had actually asked for after Mayfair adopted her, and it remained the most important.

Tasha loved stars. She loved them as a concept, an abstract, a dream—people spun them out of nighttime fantasies, romantic notions of something too big to comprehend. She loved them as a memory, a reminder; stars could implode today and still hang in the sky for another thousand years. Even at their most basic, their fusion of hydrogen and helium, their collapse and fireless burning, they took her breath away. Stars didn’t care how much of a failure she was. It was impossible for them to ignore her, because they had no concept _of_ her. They just existed, pulling the universe in their wakes.

“Sirius,” she said. “Polaris. Bellatrix.”

With each name, Patterson would find the corresponding star and take a deep breath. Already, the tension was leeching out of her. It made Tasha jealous.

“Wolf 359. Proxima Centauri.”

“Betelgeuse.”

“Yeah, Beetlejuice. Are you gonna make us watch that again for movie night?”

Patterson shrugged.

“Rigel. Saiph. Alnilam,” Tasha continued. It was always an interesting role reversal when this happened. For once, she was talking more than Patterson. “Mintaka. Hey, you know, the entire constellation Orion is actually a punk-ass bitch. Let me tell you why…”

After about ten minutes of listening to Tasha’s voice ramble about legends and blue giants, Patterson let out a little sigh. “Thanks, Tasha.”

“Better already?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She smiled. “There was a popup ad for something loud, and I was stupid.”

“You’re never stupid,” Tasha promised. It was true; if Patterson was stupid, then the rest of them had no hope.

Patterson’s smile tilted bashfully. “You’re my sister. You have to say that. Article 352 of the sisterhood clause.”

 _Sister_. Tasha still had a hard time wrapping her head around that one, most of the time. She’d been a sister her whole life, even in her Before Mayfair life, but she’d never put the _weight_ in it that she did now. The _weight_ of five years of curling up with Patterson on her bed, of teasing Ed at every opportunity, of knowing exactly where Kurt kept his beer—the weight of a term that linked her to crippling responsibility. Patterson was six months younger than her, but at times it felt like there was two years between them. Tasha wished she could protect her with her every breath.

But she was just so _empty_.

“Yeah, that’s right. Sisterhood clause.”

“Are you okay, Tasha?” Patterson asked, her eyes sharp and concerned. She might have been the only one who was ever concerned anymore.

Tasha strained a smile. “Yeah, girl, of course. My English essay is just kicking my ass, that’s all.”

“Can’t help you there. Ed could probably give you a hand.”

Yeah, he probably could, if he could tear himself apart from his girlfriend for .2 seconds. If he could forget about his football buddies for long enough to actually see her instead of looking _through_ her. If he actually was her best friend again, instead of whatever stunted thing their friendship had them turned into. She missed him.

“I’ll ask him,” she lied. “How’re you doing? Is your math teacher still being a _pendejo_?”

“I’m too young and too _female_ to be good at math, apparently. Like _I_ wasn’t the one who solved the complex variable polynomial. It’s ridiculous. But I have a friend in that class now, which is cool. His name is David. I like him a lot.”

The way she said _I like him_ clued Tasha in immediately. She wished she could feel happier for her. “You gonna marry him?”

Patterson widened her eyes, affronted. She pushed herself up and onto her elbows, cupping her cheeks with her hands. “No! Shut up, Tasha, he’s my friend. Geez.”

“Maybe I should tell Mayfair.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Patterson asked. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”                 

“Sure,” Tasha said. She forced herself to quirk her lips into a smirk and join her sister in sitting upright.

“Tasha! You can’t tell Mom. That’s just cruel.” She looked at her with big puppy-dog eyes. “I can set a stinkbomb off in your room.”

Of that, Tasha had no doubt. The first time she’d met Patterson, the girl had been getting chewed out by Weller for trying out one too many science experiments in his boxer drawer. (Apparently, he’d insulted her friend Jill for flapping her hands when she was happy.) She had been ten, and already savagely scientific in exacting her revenge.

“Please don’t.” There must have been gravel in her throat, choking her, drowning her—each word of friendly banter was harder than running a marathon. When did everything get so hard? “I won’t tell, I swear. You should probably get back to your homework, though.”

Patterson sighed, reaching out a gentle hand and gripping Tasha’s in a tight grip. Sincerely, as if it meant the world, she said, “Thanks. For earlier.” She looked like she was about to leave, but then she paused. “Why do you smell like beer?”

_Shit._

“Oh, I was, uh, hanging around Kurt and his friends.” Lying came easier than telling the truth, now. “They opened a six-pack and Allie spilled some on me.”

“Gross.” Patterson wrinkled her nose critically, tugging down the hem of her blue sweater. “You should change.”

“I will,” Tasha promised. “Go do your chem homework, nerd.”

“ _You’re_ a nerd.”

“Yeah, yeah. At least I don’t play games with elves in them.”

Sticking her tongue out, Patterson left. She shut the door behind her.

Tasha sighed, bone-tired, and reached back under her bed to pull out another beer.

 

 -

 

“Go long! Go long, Reade!” John yelled, readying his arm. His breath puffed in the cold air. “Run!”

Edgar grumbled to himself as best he could while running the length of a football field, because _what else_ did John think receivers did? Of course he was going long. Of course he was running. He was the best wide receiver in the county. He knew how to catch a football, thank you very much. But that was quarterbacks for you; they always thought they were the best at everything.

The football spiraled nicely into his palms, and he sidestepped Panda’s lunge easily. With just a few sprinting steps, he was hurtling into the end zone. Edgar Reade: 1, John the quarterback: 0.

Well, technically, they were on the same team. And technically, practice ended thirty minutes ago so they weren’t even really scrimmaging. Hell, even the official practice was technically a once-a-week off-season conditioning session. But who cared? Edgar was never really one for technicalities. (That was a lie. He totally was. But in this case, he decided to disregard that.)

“Nice catch, Reade,” Coach said, walking over from the frosty bleachers. “But where’re you boys’ rides? I need to go home eventually, I’ve got my own kid to feed.”

“My mom got stuck in traffic, but she said she’d be here in a few minutes,” said John.

“Same for my da,” said Panda.

All eyes fell expectantly on Edgar.

He shrugged. “My brother Kurt was supposed to pick me up, but I dunno where he is.”

“You got a phone?” Coach asked. “Wanna give him a ring?”

“Yeah, okay.” Edgar jogged over to his workout bag and finished out his cell, but when he called Kurt the phone rang all the way to voicemail. Not bothering to leave a message, he frowned and walked back over to the others. “Sorry, Coach, he’s not picking up.”

John’s mother had arrived—it was just Panda and Edgar left.

“You got someone else you can call? What about your mom?”

“She’s working late.”

“I’d give you a ride, but since your, uh, last coach was convicted, there’s been a change to the athletic department policy. I’m not allowed,” Coach explained, apologetic. “Don’t you have other siblings?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve got Tasha. She can drive alone now; I can get her to bring the neighbor’s car and I can drive us both back. Good idea, thanks, Coach.”

As his phone rung, he tried to imagine what his little sisters were doing. Patterson was probably playing an MMORPG that she’d promised to save for him, and Tasha was probably moping. She was always moping, now, and frankly it kind of grated on Edgar’s nerves. He loved her, he really did, but she acted as if he wasn’t allowed to have any other friends. Hopefully she wouldn’t bitch about him needing her to pick him up too badly.

She picked up on the last ring, right when he was about to hang up. “Ed?” she asked, her voice slightly croaky. “What’s up?”

“Could you pick me up from practice? Kurt bailed on me.”

“Um, yeah, I guess I could. Should I ask to borrow the Johnson’s car?”

“That’d be great,” he exhaled, giving Coach a thumbs-up. Panda’s dad drove up, calling his son to him. “You heard from Kurt, though?”

She scoffed, like there was a joke Edgar wasn’t in on. “Nope.”

“I hope everybody’s okay.”

“I’m sure they’re gonna be, Ed.” Her voice faded, like she was pulling the phone away from her ear. “Patterson, I’m gonna go pick up Ed from practice! Yeah, love you too!” Her voice got louder again, “I’ll be there in- uh, I’ll be there in like fifteen. Tell your Coach he can go home.”

“Okay, thanks, Tash.”

“Yeah, okay,” she said, and then hung up.

“She said you can go home,” Edgar told his coach. “She’ll be here in ten minutes, and it’s really no biggie. I’ll hang out in the clubhouse.”

“Good man,” Coach said, clapping him on the back. “See you Monday.”

“See you Monday, Coach.”

 

True to her word, Tasha pulled into the parking lot about fifteen minutes later. She stepped out to let him get into the driver’s side, jostling him and his equipment. It took her three tries to get the passenger side door open. Once they were both seated, he looked over at her.

In the yellow light of the parking lot streetlamps, the bags under her eyes made her look sickly. She looked nauseous and sweaty, like that time when she was twelve and had caught Ella Leroy’s stomach flu.

“You look like shit,” he said. “Did you really drive over here on _icy roads_ like this?”

“Thanks, Tasha, for driving to pick me up from practice on a Friday night. I know you didn’t have to do that, and chose to out of the good of your sisterly heart,” she grumbled, looking away from him. “You’re welcome, Ed, s’no problem.”

“Thanks, Tasha.”

“Too late, _culo_.”

Edgar drove out of the parking lot carefully, wishing he could think of a way to break the tension. Instead, he just came up with more things to worry about. “Hey, did you leave Patterson home alone?”

“Yeah, why?” Tasha sounded defensive.

“Well, she’s Patterson,” he tried to explain.

Tasha frowned. “She’s gonna be sixteen in two weeks, she’s not a little kid anymore. And she’s perfectly capable of taking care of herself. What are you trying to say?”

“Hey, hold on,” he said, turning a corner. “I’m not tryna say anything. I just…”

“Needed to displace your worry about Kurt onto someone else?” Tasha filled in tiredly. “Well, don’t do it to Patterson. She’s smarter than the both of us combined, and I gave her pepper spray for her birthday.”

“Alright, alright, Jesus. Lay off.”

Tasha slumped against the window. Edgar was a bit pissed; why did she always sound so resentful when she talked to him? She kept locking him out, then getting upset when he couldn’t get through to her. What was even the point?

They went the rest of the way in silence.

                 

Patterson was panicked when they got home. The first few times she tried to say something, all that came out of her mouth was a garbled mess—her words kept running together. Edgar shot Tasha a look, one that said: “see, I was right to be worried.” She ignored him.

“Patterson,” Tasha coaxed, her voice cracking at the edges. “Please calm down.”

“Mom called,” Patterson began. “Mom called, and she and Kurt are at the hospital.”

Edgar felt his stomach drop to somewhere around his knees. “What? Is Mom hurt?”

“ _Dios, por fa…_ ”

“No, no. There’s a girl, apparently? Kurt found her on the street, and she’s really messed up. They need to help her. But they won’t be home for dinner and you guys weren’t here and I didn’t know what to do.” She twisted her hands nervously. “I mean, I can be home alone fine, but this was important.”

“C’mere,” Tasha said, pulling Patterson into a tight hug. She met eyes with Edgar over her shoulder, looking drawn-out. It seemed like she was asking him for reassurance as she said, “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

 He nodded. He hoped they weren’t lying.

 

 -

 

Everything was foggy. Were those _her_ feet at the end of the bed? She tried to wiggle her toes, but everything felt like it was moving through molasses. The room she was in was so white. Had she ever been in a room as white as this one? She didn’t think so. The place she lived with Oscar was pretty grimy.

Oscar. Was he looking for her? Probably not. He’d told her to get out of the car.

It was an effort to turn her head. Objects were dancing again, like they were in the alley. She wished she could get her head on straight and just _think_. Everything hurt. There was a boy in the chair next to her, with his head slumped in his hand. He was the boy from the alley, the boy with the warm jacket. Why did he look so sad?

She didn’t remember making a sound, but he looked up. What was his name? It started with a C or a K. She was probably having an episode. That’s why Oscar said she had to take her meds; she was sick. She needed to take her medicine. Did this boy know that? He was kind. He had kind eyes, and he had helped her.

Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, but she made herself say, “Thank you.”

The boy’s forehead crinkled. “Hey, you don’t have to thank me. How are you feeling?”

“Bad.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t mean laughter. It was…startled sympathy. She wished she could smile too, but the room was still dipping in her vision.

“Do you remember me? I’m Kurt,” he said. His hand fiddled close to hers, like he wanted to take it. That was nice. She couldn’t remember the last time someone held her hand. Though that wasn’t really saying much, given that she couldn’t really remember anything. But she did remember him, so she nodded. The room tilted, making her wish she hadn’t.

“Do you remember your own name?”

Did she? There was a twinge of recognition, hidden behind the fog in her mind. It started with an L. But something told her she didn’t really want to remember.

“No,” she said.

“That’s okay,” Kurt reassured her. “Mayf—my mom is trying to find your family. Do you remember anybody we should call?”

She remembered Kurt’s mother, too. He didn’t look much like her, but there was…solidity to both of them. She liked that. It didn’t make the fog as scary. “Oscar,” she told him. “He said I should get out of the car.”

“Where can we find him?”

“He’s busy, I think. He works with tats.” _Tats._ The word sounded nice. “Tat, tat, cat, rat.”

Kurt looked concerned, but before he could say anything his mother walked in. She had a doctor with her. The doctor was looking at a clipboard very intently.

“What’d they do to her?” Kurt’s mom asked. She looked angry.

The doctor hummed. “Her blood work shows clear signs of recent benzodiazepines, at such levels that I suspect she’s developed a dependency.  Her brain chemistry has a poor reaction to it, judging by the symptoms you and your son described—if it’d been prescribed by a psychiatric professional, they would have taken her off the medication immediately. Something makes me doubt that’s the case. We also noted distinct malnourishment, though whether that’s from the medication or other factors we can’t be sure. Whoever her family is, I wouldn’t advise letting them into see her without a prior interrogation.”

The doctor’s words didn’t make sense. They rolled out of her mind like water droplets off a duck’s back. It was frustrating, having everything so far out of her reach. It was like this a lot, but she’d never wanted to _understand_ as much as she did right now. Something started to build up in the back of her throat and moisture blurred at her eyes and _no,_ she would not cry—but it was too late; tears had already begun to roll down her cheeks.

Kurt noticed first. “Hey,” he said, in his gravelly voice. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it out. No one’s gonna leave you, I promise.”

Why was he so nice? People weren’t normally this nice. She cried harder, unable to stop—she was choking, drowning, and everything around her was tipping, tipping, tipping. The doctor and Kurt’s mom had realized that she was awake, and were crowding her with warm eyes. Warm eyes like sunsets and blankets and clarity and things that she hadn’t had in such a very long time. Why couldn’t she stop crying?

“Hey, honey, it’s okay,” the doctor said. How many times had people said that to her today? When had anything ever been okay? “I know everything is probably very overwhelming right now, but I need you to breathe. Breathe with me.” The doctor put a hand on her own chest to exaggerate the movements. “ _In_ , out, _in,_ out. _Good_. Good girl.”

Her breathing settled. It still hitched every few breaths or so, but she was no longer gasping for air.

“Better?” asked the doctor.

She was about to nod, but remembered not to at the last minute. She tried to offer a clumsy thumbs-up. A smile tugged at the doctor’s lips.

“Good,” she said. “I’m Dr. Miyata. This handsome boy,” she jerked her thumb at Kurt, “told us that you were feeling a bit confused? Having some memory gaps?”

She nodded.

“She doesn’t remember her name,” Kurt put in. He turned to away from the doctor, looking at her. “I want to call you _something_ , though.”

Helpless, she shrugged. “I…dunno.”

“The hospital’s calling you Jane Doe right now,” Kurt’s mom said. “Is that okay? Can we call you Jane?”

She thought about it. Whatever her real name was, she didn’t especially want to remember it. Jane sounded good.

“Sure,” Jane said. Her head felt heavy. “I like…I um…” The thought slipped away from her. She felt so _bad_.

“What’s the matter, honey?” Dr. Miyata asked, concerned but clinical. “You feeling any pain?”

“I think I’m gonna—” she didn’t get a chance to finish her thought. She leaned over the bed and retched onto the IV stand. There wasn’t much for her to throw up, but she coughed for a good minute before she was able to straighten. She wiped her mouth, ashamed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, kiddo,” Dr. Miyata said smoothly, pressing a button to call an orderly. “You’ve been through a hell of a time. No one here blames you, do they?” She looked pointedly at Kurt and his mom, who shook their heads dutifully. “See?”

Jane looked down and played with the hem of the bed sheets.

“Jane?” Dr. Miyata asked.

After a pause, Jane glanced at Kurt. He was furrowing his brow and biting his lip, staring at her like she might fade. She felt _too_ seen. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling. Sure, he was probably just being nice, but…what did he _want_?

Kurt’s mom was a bit easier to read. Her expression was frank, honest; there weren’t really any hidden depths to the way she took steady stock of all of Jane’s limbs. When she noticed Jane looking at her, she inclined her head with a small smile. What did _she_ want? Everyone seemed to have endless expectations, and were looking at her with such…well, expectance. It was intimidating. Jane felt like crying. Her head still hurt.

“I want to go home,” she whispered, bringing her hands up to her eyes. “Take me home, please. _Please_. I want to go home.”

“I’m sorry, Jane,” Dr. Miyata said, pulling Jane’s hands gently away from her face and running cool fingers over her forehead. “You have to stay here for a bit, okay? Just until you feel better and we ask Oscar a couple questions.”

“He told me to get out of the car.”

Kurt cut in, his voice rough. “She said that before, when I asked. That Oscar told her to get out of the car. She also said he works with…cats?”

“ _Tats_ ,” Jane corrected, leaning back on the pillow and staring at the ceiling. Why did they want to know so much? She felt shaky.

“Maybe he’s responsible for that stick-and-poke on her neck,” Dr. Miyata mused. A man in scrubs entered with cleaning supplies and started to scrub the floor where Jane had thrown up.

“Why’d he tell you to get out of the car?” asked Kurt’s mom, pulling her attention back to the conversation. “Something happen?”

Jane tried to remember, though she didn’t get why it mattered. “He gave me my meds,” she said, and Dr. Miyata and Kurt’s mom shared a look. “And then we went driving. He had errands. He told me to get out of the car. He was gonna come back. I should’ve waited.”

“No, you _shouldn’t’ve_ ,” growled Kurt. “You were going to freeze out there.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. I’m glad you didn’t.”

“Thank you. You saved me.”

Kurt blushed, rubbing at his scratchy cheeks. “It was no problem. You don’t owe me or anything.”

Dr. Miyata picked up her clipboard again. “Sorry to interrupt. How old are you, Jane?”

“Don’t remember,” Jane slurred. Her tongue was getting thick again, heavy in her mouth. It was harder to get words out. “I’m six and he’s ten and we can’t cross the street.”

“What?” Kurt asked.

His mom understood what Jane was trying to say. “You’re four years younger than…Oscar?”

She tried to nod, but the room slid sideways.

“Whoa, you’re fading fast, aren’t you, hon?” Dr. Miyata asked, finding Jane’s hand and squeezing. “We’re going to have to keep you for a while, though. It won’t be easy coming down. Don’t worry; we’ll see you through.”

Jane tried to follow her words, but only caught the sentiment. It was a pretty kind sentiment.”

“I’m staying,” Kurt said, before his mom could open her mouth.

“We can bring him a cot,” the doctor put in.

Kurt’s mom rolled her eyes. “I’ll go home to the rest of my kids. See you in the morning. Goodnight, Kurt, Jane. Take care of them, Dr. Miyata.”

Jane’s vision started to blur. Everything sounded like it was happening in a bathroom—noise echoed like it did in the shower. The mattress was so soft. She was sinking into it.

“Sleep,” a voice murmured.

Jane slept.

 

-

 

Bethany Mayfair was not an impractical woman. She understood that four adopted children were fucking plenty for a single mother, thank you very much. She was extremely well versed in how difficult it would be to get child services to agree to let her have custody of another kid. She _definitely_ understood that it would be misguided to even try.

She also knew her children, especially her eldest son, and knew that they wouldn’t forgive her if she let Jane go.

So that was why, instead of following her coworkers back to the office to finish paperwork, she was standing in front of Robert Borden’s doormat, about to barge into his life and ask if he was willing to adopt a girl out of the blue. Wonderful.

“Bethany?” he asked, opening the door. He glanced down the street towards her house, which was thankfully intact and not on fire. “Is something wrong?”

Mayfair looked at him, really looked. He was a young man, a bit under thirty, dressed in a sweater and a pair of slacks. A dab of sour cream decorated his bottom lip. There were rings under his eyes, but they weren’t nearly as pronounced as she was used to seeing on men his age. He looked genuinely concerned and willing to help. But still: this was huge.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course,” he said. He stood back to allow her to pass into the living room. “Don’t mind the clutter.”

“I live with four teenagers. If I minded clutter, I’d be on trial for multiple counts of first-degree murder.”

Borden grinned, gesturing for her to sit on the couch while he settled in an armchair. “You’d get away with it, too.”

“I know I would.”

“So what’s this about? Forgive me for saying so, but you’re not exactly the type for evening social visits.”

“I’m not. But I have something I gotta ask you before I tell you why I’m here,” she said, looking around. The walls were a pale blue, and he’d obviously redone the flooring in a nice dark wood. What little mess there was stayed contained to the coffee table. It was a pretty room, if a bit empty. “How is your life going for you right now?”

Borden frowned, obviously not anticipating the question. “Pretty well, I’d like to think.”

She sighed. “Really, though, how’s it going? Past niceties, could you tell me?”

“I have four to five sessions a day, nine-to-five work hours, good pay.” He shrugged. “Clients can be annoying to devastating. It’s a bit boring, really, but I do alright.”

“Would you have room in your life for…something else? Something bigger?”

“Why are you here, Bethany?” he asked, employing the age-old therapist’s tool of answering a question with a question.

Mayfair pursed her lips. “There’s a girl Kurt found in an alley, down on James and View. She’s a Jane Doe right now; we haven’t found her family. She’s in such bad shape that I don’t think we _want_ to find her family. If it comes down to it, she’ll get tossed into the system without anyone looking out for her.”

“Let me guess, either you or Kurt are already attached?”

“Kurt. And me, slightly, I s’pose. But it was hard enough getting the state to give a black lesbian four children—they’ll never give me another one.”

“So what are you asking?”

“If we come to it—and I’m not saying we will—would you…would you be willing to take her?”

Borden sat back, a bit shell-shocked. He had to have seen it coming, but Mayfair could understand the confrontation of the responsibility such a decision held. What she was asking, it was no small thing.

“I’d help out,” she was quick to promise. “She could even stay at my house a couple of nights a week. And after school.”

“You want me to adopt a _child_? Do we know anything about her? Where even is she?”

“She’s in the hospital right now. She got admitted this afternoon.”

“You’ve known her what, all of five hours? Isn’t this all a bit premature?”

“I _know_ it’s premature,” Mayfair snapped. “But these things happen slowly and then all at once. One day she’ll be recovering, the next CPS’ll be running in and putting her into some group home in the middle of nowhere, and if we ever want to see her again we’ll have to track her across state lines!”

He paused long enough for her to grow uncomfortable with her own outburst.

“This is about what happened to Tasha,” he deduced. “You’re scared that will happen again.”

“This is _not_ about what happened to Tasha.”

“Alright.” Borden tilted his head, considering. “This is a big decision, though, Bethany. A teenager?”

“Yeah. I’m really sorry to drop it on you like this, Borden, but you’re the only one I could think of.”

“What would I need to do?”

“Get your name in the system,” she said. “Have a background check, a home check. They could put you on a reserve list, and you could wait to submit a formal application if it turns out that way.”

“I just…wow.” He rubbed at his beard, pensive. “You said she’s a Jane Doe? Are you calling her Jane?”

“Yeah, for now. She can’t remember her real name.”

“Amnesia?”

“This guy named Oscar—her legal guardian, we think—has been hopping her up on these antianxiety meds. They make her so confused and sick. Poor kid.”

“That’s awful.” Borden stood. “I’ll have to think it through. It’s…a major life call.”

“Of course,” Mayfair replied, standing as well. She wanted him to take this kid—needed him to, really. But she respected his right to his own life, and not all young men wanted to jump head first into fatherhood. “CPS is so backlogged that you probably won’t have to make a decision for another week.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Oscar’s lips, knowing and infuriatingly therapist-like. “You do have a habit for picking up strays, don’t you?”

Mayfair frowned, suddenly feeling defensive. “That’s all Kurt,” she countered. “Kid’s a damn near Peter Pan. Hasn’t met a lost boy he didn’t have to save.”

“Is it all him?” Borden walked over to the door, and Mayfair took it as the quiet dismissal it was. “I think the adoption certificates in your name would beg to differ. You’re a good woman, Bethany, and an incredible mum.”

“They’re incredible kids.”

“Don’t write yourself off,” he warned. “Those kids need you.”

She smiled a tightlipped smile, opening his door and stepping out onto the steps. The street was only illuminated by a few sporadic streetlamps, and a few cold droplets on her neck told her that snow was about to start coming down. Her kids at home would be anxious and most likely hungry; it was time to leave.

“I’ll see you, Borden,” she said. “Night.”

“Goodnight, Bethany. I’ll let you know.”

 

-

 

The microwave beeped, incessant and irritating. Patterson groaned—her head was on the counter, and the marble felt really nice against her cheek. She didn’t want to get up, not even for popcorn. Not even for food. Who needed food? Food was overrated.

 “Patterson!” Ed yelled. He was in the living room, trying to do his homework and watch the football game at the same time. “Can you turn that thing off?”

“Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, dragging herself upright and off the stool. The popcorn _did_ smell tempting. Of course, that’s why everything had to go wrong.

The door to the microwave nearly hit her in the face when she pressed the button to open it, and the bag burned her fingers as she took it out. She hissed and set it down on the counter, sucking on her fingertips in irritation. “Not cool,” she muttered.

As she moved to find a bowl in the cabinet below her, she caught sight of the time on the oven clock _. 8:53._ Her mom and Kurt still weren’t home. Neither of them had called since her mom let her know that they were at the hospital. And Patterson wasn’t worried, she _wasn’t_ , but that was a long time, okay? Too long for everything to be fine. It’d nearly been enough time to watch an entire Lord of the Rings movie, for crying out loud. How was that okay? What if something had happened? All the popcorn in the world wouldn’t be able to fix that.

So maybe Patterson was a bit worried. Sue her.

It wasn’t like she was the only one in the house who was. After insisting on at least trying to make Patterson an omelet (which she burnt), Tasha had drained herself dry of all her sarcastic comments. Now she was cooped up in her room doing god knows what. Edgar, on the other hand, was fixedly pretending nothing was happening, intent on proceeding with his evening as if Mom was working late like she was supposed to.

Honestly, and people had the nerve to call the two of them the normal ones of the family.

She was about to take her first handful of popcorn when she heard the telltale jingling at the door. She looked over at Ed, who was hastily flicking the TV off—it appeared he’d heard it too. Mom was home.

“Please tell me you aren’t eating popcorn for dinner.”

Home and full of opinions, apparently.

“I’m not, um, eating popcorn for dinner?”

Her mom sighed, setting her briefcase down on the table. “Remind me to teach you how to lie.”

Patterson grimaced. She knew she was a bad liar; she’d had to suffer through two years of Tasha’s attempts to correct it.

“Hey, Mom,” said Ed, moving into the kitchen with his math textbook tucked under his arm. “Where’s Kurt?”

“Still at the hospital. Care to explain why your sister is eating popcorn for dinner?”

Ed cast Patterson a betrayed look. “Can’t you ask her?”

“Edgar.” Mom sounded only a hair’s breadth away from fed up.

“Tasha burnt dinner, so we just…fended for ourselves. I figured it would be okay for one night, as long as she actually remembered to eat for once.” He shrugged. “She’s the one who chose it.”

Mom turned her disapproving gaze on Patterson, who chose to study her shirt hem. It wasn’t like the popcorn was the _worst_ choice she could have gone with. They had a fresh bag of milanos in the cupboard that she’d been considering. Besides, weren’t there more important things to be focusing on?

“What happened with Kurt, Mom?” she asked. “You didn’t say anything on the phone.”

Her mom frowned. “I’d rather tell all of you at the same time. Where’s your sister?”

“In her room.” Ed rolled his eyes.

“Leave her alone,” Patterson chastised. People were always giving Tasha a hard time. “Just because she likes to do her homework _away_ from the TV…”

Ed looked affronted.

“ _Stop it,_ both of you. Can one of you go get her?”

“I’ll do it,” Patterson volunteered.

She left the kitchen and climbed up the stairs, coming up short in front of the last door on the right. The door didn’t have the collection of science stickers that Patterson’s did, nor the football poster that decorated the door to the room that Kurt and Ed shared. Instead, it had a simple sign that just said “TASHA” in little black letters. Patterson liked that sign. It was as constant as Tasha herself. Patterson knocked, then let herself in.

Tasha lay on her bed, propped up on pillows and staring at the ceiling in much the same position she was in when Patterson came in earlier. She looked up blearily. “Yeah?”

“Tash, Mom’s home. She wants a family meeting.”

“Tell Mayfair I’ll be out in a second.”

“Don’t you want to find out what happened? It’s a big deal, I can tell.”

Tasha firmed her lips, brushing down the front of her shirt—the same one that Allie spilled beer on—and nodded. “Okay, I’m coming. It’s just… Last time you had a ‘big surprise’, wasn’t it me?”

Patterson hesitated. She supposed Tasha had a point. What would they do if Mom adopted this one too? Would she or Tasha have to share a room? Would it offset the whole family dynamic? Would Patterson have to help her in school, too? Who even was this girl? What kind of situation were they getting her out of?

“I guess,” she said slowly. “But it’s a bit early for that. She might have a family already, a good home. That’s all uncertain, you know? Unknown variables. But what’s not uncertain is that Mom is going to kill us if we make her wait any longer. Known, scary, bad-for-my-ears variables.”

Tasha’s lips twisted into a bittersweet smile. Her eyes were slightly glassy. “You’re right, Patterson. Keep being right, okay?”

The way she said it _scared_ Patterson a little bit. It felt…. But that was probably nothing.

Patterson tangled her fingers in Tasha’s jacket sleeves, pulling her big sister up. “C’mon, clumsy, let’s go. Or I can start listing the periodic table. Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium—”

“ _Bore_ -on,” Tasha interrupted. “Let’s go, nerd.”

Patterson grinned. “You knew what came next.”

“Did not.”

“Did too. You even made a pun about it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Tasha nearly stumbled on her way out the door. “You’re hallucinating.”

“Not funny,” Patterson snapped, her voice suddenly sharp.

Tasha looked down. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“’It’s not.”

“Yeah, it’s not. But I forgive you.” Patterson offered her a teasing smile. “And you still can’t deny that I’m not the only nerd in the family.”

“I can and I will.”

They came into the kitchen, where Ed and Mom looked like they’d been growing old waiting for them.

“Took you long enough,” Ed grumbled.

“Stop being so grumpy,” sniped Tasha. “You’re starting to sound like Kurt.”

“Like Kurt, or like you?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”  
                 

“Enough,” their mom commanded, pinching the bridge of her nose. “I have to talk to you.”

Tasha slumped down on one of the kitchen chairs. She did up the zip to her hoodie—Patterson hoped that would be enough to stop her smelling like beer, for the family’s sake. If Mom found out that Kurt had been drinking beer near his siblings, Patterson would be picking intestines off the ceiling for a month.

“There’s this girl,” Mom began, “and she doesn’t remember her name.”

                


	2. for a scribbled out name

Snow was falling outside the window. Jane could see it from where she was, propped up on plump hospital pillows. Little white dashes, tumbling from the sky. The snowflakes weren’t dainty, they didn’t glide or spiral or drift—they just fell and fell and fell. Where would they end up? Would they be made into a snowman? Would they be caught on a little kid’s tongue? Would they be crushed by a snow sweeper, pushed into a pile of dog poo and hangover vomit?

Jane knew which snowflake she related to more. She felt _awful_.

She’d woken up at four in the morning, shaking hard enough to make her teeth chatter. She’d vomited until her stomach was dry, sobbing hard enough to blind herself—she _ached_ for something, for her _medicine_ , none of this would be happening if she just had her _medicine_. There were hands on her back, rubbing little circles, but her throat was raw and something was stabbing the space behind her eyes and everything was agony. She was a lifeboat tossed and thrown in a sea of white lights and sweaty blankets; but she wasn’t, because she wasn’t a boat—she was just a little girl, choking tears into the night.

There had been multiple waves of the suffering, periods where it would wane and then start back up again. After the first wave, a nurse had explained what was happening to her. Withdrawal: the literal hell that followed chemical dependence. Jane hated it.

Kurt had stayed through it all, though Jane couldn’t understand why. It wasn’t like she was worth anything. He was in the bathroom, now, and all that sat with her was an empty cot. She was almost glad; she barely had the energy to stare out the window. Kurt, for all his kindness, watched her with such expectations.

If there was an upside to the torture, it was that her head felt a lot clearer. Thoughts concerning Before and Oscar were still hazy, but things that happened in the present felt real. Jane couldn’t remember the last time something felt real. It was kind of terrifying.

It kept snowing. Falling, falling, falling.

“Hey, Jane,” Dr. Miyata said from the doorway. Jane turned. Now that she was able to focus, she could see the doctor more clearly—she was pretty, of small stature, and had a maternal enough glint to her eyes to offset the clipboard that she still carried. “How are you doing?”

Jane shrugged. “Bad.”

Dr. Miyata came and sat at the end of the bed, putting a warm hand on the covers over Jane’s foot. “Chin up, kiddo. You’re looking better than you were a couple hours ago.”

Jane attempted a small smile.

“We found a substitute benzodiazepine to take the edge off those awful withdrawal symptoms,” she said. “We gave you a small dose a few hours ago. It’ll be better than “But…but if I’m still on my meds, why isn’t my head still…” Jane tapped her temple. “Fuzzy?”

“You’re not as confused?”

Jane shook her head.

“That’s great news.” Dr. Miyata’s smile felt so genuine that it lit up the room. “It means that your brain just likes this medication a bit better. This way you’ll only have to fight the withdrawal, and not the medication itself.”

“Oh.” She supposed that explained why she didn’t feel as scared as she thought she should. Instead of staring into reality as if it were a murky pond, she was looking into a clear reflecting pool. It was so much easier to tell what everything around her was—but she was still detached, still apart from it.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, you’ve got a rough road ahead of you,” Dr. Miyata said. “Withdrawal from antianxiety meds can take a long time, and it’s not a pretty process.” She squeezed Jane’s foot. Jane wondered absently if she was a pediatric doctor or just a regular one. “But we’re going to get you through it, okay? Everyone on the floor’s already rooting for you, and you’ve only been here for a day and a half.”

Jane frowned. “A day and a half?”

“It’s Sunday, hon.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘ _oh’_ , sleeping beauty. Didn’t you realize you weren’t in urgent care anymore? Aw, that’s okay. Anyway, all of us here are on your side. But to help you, we need to fill out your medical history.” She waggled her clipboard. “And the cops—and your friends at the FBI—are trying to find out who your family is. So here’s the clincher: do you remember anything?”

Did she remember anything? Up till that moment, she’d been trying her hardest _not_ to remember anything. There was an itch at the back of her head that she just didn’t _want_ to scratch. Oscar had told her to get out of the car. Why had he done that?

“Who’s Oscar, Jane? What’s his relation to you?”

_Birthday candles, bills in the trashcan, ink-stained fingers, spilt alcohol, yelling, crying, gunshots, pill bottles, fog, fog, so much fog. Forgiveness and bruised cheeks and holding each other’s hand. Trust; fear._

Her mouth was dry—she couldn’t drag her eyes away from the snow falling outside the window. She wanted to remember so _badly_ , but at the same time, she didn’t. “Known him for my whole life, I think.”

“Not your brother?”

“No.”

“And he’s a tattoo artist? Where does he work?” Dr. Miyata looked like she hated having to push Jane.

“I…don’t know. I was always…foggy when he took me to work.” _Taunting men, tattoo guns, rough smirks._ “He said it wasn’t safe for me there.”

“Ah,” said the doctor. “Not the best side of town, huh?” She paused. “What about your name, Jane? Do you remember your real name?”

It was like a wire was tripped in her head. There was an L somewhere but she didn’t want to remember—no she did—but she didn’t and oh god that _hurt_ and she brought her hands up to her head and clutched at her hair because her _name_ but _no_ and Dr. Miyata was saying something gently but all Jane could do was whimper. What was going _on_? Why was she reacting like this? She didn’t know.

Finally, finally, her heart calmed down enough for her to hear Dr. Miyata saying, “Hey, honey, you’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. Don’t worry, we don’t have to talk about it. You’re okay. You’re right here. You’re okay.”

There it was again: _you’re okay_. Everyone was so obsessed with _okay_.

Dr. Miyata sighed, relieved, when Jane looked up and met her gaze. “There we go, kiddo. You doing alright?”

Jane grimaced. “Yeah.”

Dr. Miyata’s pager beeped. She checked it and stood. “Sorry, Jane,” she said, “but I need to go check on another patient. I saw Kurt out in the hall, on the phone—I’ll get him to come in and sit with you. Anything you need before I go?”

“I—No.”

“I’ll see you soon, then. Nurse call button right there if you need it.” She tapped a finger on the bedside table, next to a remote. “Someone will be by to take out your IV soon.”

Dr. Miyata left. As she had promised, Kurt traipsed in soon after that. He looked awkward in the morning light, too bulky and grim for the world around him. Jane understood; she felt awkward too. What did you say to someone who saved your life? Besides thank you, obviously.

“Thank you.”

He scratched at the back of his head, moving to sit on his cot. “No problem.”

His voice was low, and with his stubble she had to guess he was at least seventeen. Unlike the kids from her neighborhood (how did she remember them?), he didn’t seem to be posturing and trying to make himself look older and tougher. He just kind of…was that way.

“Listen,” he said. “Um, I don’t know how much you remember of what I told you in the alleyway. About my family.”

Jane blinked. His family? “Not, uh, not much,” she said.

“Well, they’re in the lobby.” He looked laughably embarrassed. “All of them. They want to meet you, if you’re up for it?”

All of his family? In the lobby? To meet _her_? Why would they care about some girl Kurt had just stumbled upon in an alley? Speaking of which, why did he even still care? Why was he still there? Jane had trouble trusting someone whose intentions were so…unclear. Did he want something from her?

“S-sure,” she said. “It’d be cool to meet your family.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay with it?”

“Yeah.” She bit her lip and nodded.

“I’ll go get them.” He stood back up and, after checking that she hadn’t magically disappeared from her hospital bed, left.

 _Damn_. Jane wished she had the energy to form a proper response to this development, because wow.

After a few minutes (it was still snowing outside the window), Kurt returned. About four other people came with him. They all bumped and crowded into each other; it was pretty overwhelming.

“Hi, Jane,” Kurt’s mom said. Jane recognized her from earlier, though she’d changed from one business suit into another. “How’re you feeling?”

“Better.” Was that a lie? She didn’t know.

Kurt’s mom took a step forward. “I realize I didn’t actually introduce myself. My name’s Bethany Mayfair. You can call me whatever you’d like: Mayfair or Bethany or anything else. Some of my kids,” she nodded at the three figures behind her, “even call me Mayfair, so there’s no pressure.”

Jane wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Nice to meet you?” she tried.

Mayfair smiled—the smile was kind, but Jane had no basis to tell whether or not it was maternal—and stepped aside to allow her children the opportunity for introduction.

The three kids who weren’t Kurt didn’t stand side-by-side—instead, they stayed staggered, one hidden behind the other two. On the left, her arms folded defensively over her chest, was a girl who appeared to be about a year older than Jane thought she was. She didn’t look, as Jane was coming to expect, anything like Kurt—she was Latina, and had dark eyes and a messy head of wavy hair. She saw Jane watching her and clearly attempted to gentle her expression with a strained smile, but her body remained tense and protective.

The boy on the right was the only one who looked like he could have been related to Mayfair, if only because he was also black. But the nose was different, the brow rounder, the freckles absent—even the hair color was wrong. His hair was close-cropped and black, curling out a bit too much to be qualified as buzzed, with absolutely no hint of auburn coloring. If Jane had to guess, she would peg him as just as adopted as the other three. In terms of clothing, his outfit was less imposing than the other girl’s; he was wearing a button-up and slacks instead of ripped black jeans and a leather jacket. However, unlike his sister, he didn’t even try to smile at Jane.

Behind the other two was a shorter girl, younger. Jane couldn’t quite make her out until she pushed past her siblings, looking irritated at their protectiveness. She was white and blonde, dressed in an oversized blue wool sweater and a skirt. Her smile was bright, but her blue eyes skipped over the equipment that surrounded Jane’s bed, assessing and evaluating. She introduced herself first.

“Hi,” she said, flicking her hand out in an awkward wave. “I’m Patterson.”

“P-Patterson?” Jane cleared her throat and forced a shaky smile. “I’m…Jane.”

“Cool.” Patterson blinked, hard, as if reminding herself of something. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too?”

Patterson’s smile pressed into an embarrassed one. “Sorry,” she said. “I’m not great at pleasantries.”

“It’s okay,” Jane reassured her. “I don’t think I am either.”

Patterson gave her a grateful look, then ducked her head again. She jabbed her thumbs in either direction. “These dumb overprotective goofs are my siblings, Tasha and Edgar—and you already met Kurt. Come on, guys, you have to introduce yourselves.”

The boy nodded, finally breaking his stoic expression with a tense smile. “Hey, I’m Edgar. Good to meet you.”

“I’m Tasha,” the other girl said, tipping her chin up.

Jane wasn’t quite sure what to do. She’d already said ‘nice to meet you’—what else did people say? She couldn’t remember. She settled for propping herself up a bit more on her pillows.

“We wanted to meet you because you might be staying with us for a little while under FBI jurisdiction and protection while CPS gets their act together,” Mayfair explained, surveying Jane and her children with a frank expression. “If that’s alright with you? The hospital says they’re gonna release you pretty soon.”

“They are?”

“Yeah, probably on Tuesday,” Kurt cut in. She’d nearly forgotten he was there. “As long as we bring you in for checkups and keep an eye on your withdrawal.”

Really? She wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. These people didn’t seem _bad_ , but she didn’t know them. Besides, “What about Oscar?”

She didn’t miss the way Kurt’s hands clenched into fists at the name. Edgar, Patterson, and Tasha looked askance at Mayfair—clearly, whatever they’d been told about Jane beforehand, it hadn’t included this.

“We haven’t found him yet,” Mayfair said. “And when we do, he’ll have to get reviewed by CPS. They might declare him unfit.”

“And what happens to me then?” Jane’s voice sounded shrill in her own ears—cracking, breaking, high pitched.

“If that happens, then we’ll make sure you stay somewhere safe.”

“With _you_?”

“Not necessarily.” Mayfair’s eyes were compassionate.

“I don’t _want_ somewhere safe,” she whined, feeling the burn of tears in her throat. She was so _sick_ of crying. “I want to go home.”

“With Oscar?” Kurt burst. He was so angry, she could tell, and she curled into herself to get away from it. “The one who sent you out in the cold to die? Why?”

“ _Kurt_ ,” Mayfair said, her voice low.

“No! He _hurt_ her, Mayfair.” He turned back to Jane. “Isn’t he the one who drugged you so badly that you can’t even remember your name?”

Jane’s knuckles were white, clenched in the sheets. Why were men always yelling at her? She felt slightly sick again. She wanted to turn away. There was no good answer she could give Kurt, nothing that made sense—now that her head was clearer, she _knew_ what Oscar had done, but he was _home_. And he wasn’t like that, he wasn’t bad, but there had been circumstances that had forced him to do the things he had. Jane had gotten in the way. She owed him; she was hard to take care of. And he _had_ hurt her, but maybe he didn’t know, but maybe he did, but maybe but maybe but maybe. The lump at the back of her throat grew bigger.

So quickly that Jane could hardly process it, Tasha moved in between Jane and Kurt. The girl put her hands up against Kurt’s chest, physically blocking him from Jane. She gave him a small shove that sent him down into one of the waiting chairs.

“No,” Tasha snapped. “You don’t get to be that, Kurt. You don’t get to judge about that. You don’t know fucking anything. And if I ever, ever, see you do that again, I don’t give a _carajo_ that you’re my brother. I will end you. So take a breath and calm the fuck down. I get you just want to protect her, but what you just did isn’t okay.”

Kurt was about to snap back, but Jane met his eyes and she saw him realize what he’d done. He looked down, ashamed. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.

Jane nodded, but she couldn’t untuck her fingers.

“Swearing, Tasha,” Mayfair said with a sigh, but she made no other comment. Evidently, she agreed with Tasha’s call that Kurt was out of line. Patterson, next to her, was frozen, her eyes drilling into the floor by Tasha’s feet. Edgar bumped shoulders with her and she looked up, her face clearing. Her gaze switched to calculating as she appraised the situation.

Jane wished she could be bothered to pay attention beyond that, but she just felt numb. Her head was pounding again, her stomach roiling. She let the interactions going on around her fade until someone called her name.

“Jane. _Jane_ ,” Mayfair said. “You look tired. We’ll give you some space to sleep. Would you like someone to stay with you?”

She nodded, her head jerking up and back, the sheets rasping beneath her clawed fingers—she didn’t want to be alone. Even as tiring people proved to be, they were less scary than the idea of being trapped with just her own head and the snow outside.

“Is it okay if I stay?” Kurt asked, his eyes asking her for forgiveness. “You can say no if you’d rather one of the others.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said, because he had done so much for her and she didn’t want him to think she was ungrateful. Besides, she didn’t think he’d hurt her. He had scared her, but he didn’t _scare_ her. “You—You can stay. If you want.”

His face didn’t curl into a smile—no one was smiling, not anymore. Jane wasn’t smiling, Edgar wasn’t smiling, Kurt was solemn, Patterson looked overwhelmed by her very presence, Tasha was so tense that Jane wanted to force her to calm down—and wouldn’t that just be the pot calling the kettle black. The temperate hospital room was suddenly stifling.

“Kurt, remember you have homework to do at some point,” said Mayfair.

“I can drive it down later,” Edgar offered. He accepted Kurt’s grimace as the thank you it was.

The family shared glances, ones indecipherable to Jane’s foreign eyes. How long did you have to live with someone, she wondered, until your expressions became a language of their own? She wasn’t sorry when they bid their quiet farewells and traipsed out of the room, a line of mismatched toys drifting out into the corridor beyond.

Jane felt empty. She just wanted to go home.

Snow was falling, falling, falling.

 

-

 

“You didn’t go to Church this morning.”

Tasha looked up from where she was doing her English homework at the kitchen table. She frowned at Patterson, who was watching her from the opposite seat.

“I haven’t gone to Church in four years. I haven’t attended Sunday Mass for eight. Why _would_ I go to Church this morning?”

Patterson shrugged. She was regretting asking. “I don’t know. I saw you praying, earlier, when we came out of the hospital.”

“I wasn’t praying,” Tasha snapped, glaring back down at her word document.

“Isn’t that what,” Patterson clumsily mimed crossing herself, “means?”

“ _Santos cielos_ , Patterson, for someone so smart you really need to work on your religious education.”

“So…that’s not praying?”

Tasha sighed. “No, it is. _Santiguarse: el Padre, el Hijo, y el Espiritú Santo._ ”

"What?”

“Crossing yourself. It’s basically a prayer.”

“Then why did you say you weren’t praying?”

“Because it’s kind of private, okay? And me and God don’t really have a great track record. I’m not even sure if I believe in him.”

“But you were…praying?”

“Fucking hell.”

Patterson winced; she wasn’t trying to be obtuse, she swore she wasn’t, but she didn’t understand religion. It wasn’t numbers, or patterns, or words, or anything quantifiable—faith, to hear those who had it tell of it, came from somewhere within. It burned in their chests, tied them up to the sky, made them feather-light or lead-heavy in turns. True faith and religion weren’t falsifiable, they didn’t correspond to any particular or set rules, and Patterson didn’t comprehend a word. Tasha—well, Tasha knew more than Patterson, at least. Tasha had been born with a cross on her chest and water on her forehead, even if she claimed to have forsaken it, and Patterson thought that if anyone could explain it in understandable terms it would be her.

“Sorry,” she apologized. It had been a dumb idea, anyway.

Tasha sighed and pushed some hair behind her ear. “No, it’s okay, Patterson. I’m the one being an ass. I just don’t feel so great.”

“Are you sick?”

With a shrug, Tasha tipped her head back up and studied Patterson full on. “How are you holding up? I know these past few days have kind of disrupted your routine.”

They had, but at least they hadn’t interrupted school. “It’s not so bad.”

“Good.” Tasha smiled the forced, thin smile that was all that Patterson ever saw anymore. It didn’t look anything like the smile she had learned to match to her face charts when she was five—but then, Patterson had learned a long time ago that people didn’t fit into charts. It would be so _nice_ if they did, but they didn’t. “Things get hard with this whole Jane situation, you tell me, yeah?”

“Okay.”

“Then shoo, I gotta get this English essay done.”

Instead of leaving, Patterson decided to let her curiosity get the better of her. “What essay are you working on?”

“Everybody’s favorite analysis of _Heart of Darkness_.” Tasha pushed her hand through her hair in dull frustration. “Where literally everything is racist and sexist, and nothing makes sense.”

“Wasn’t that due on the 13th?” Patterson asked.

“No.”

“It was for us. You want help?”

“Not really. I think your goldfish likes English homework more than you.”

“I don’t think my goldfish has a concept of language. He has a three second attention span.”

“Wow, sounds like someone else I know.” The corners of Tasha’s mouth twitched upwards, curling into a smirk.

“Hey, I have an abnormally _long_ attention span!” Patterson protested. “For the things I like.”

“We went from talking about God to talking about a goldfish in less than five minutes.”

“In my defense, I think that was mostly your fault.”

Tasha let an amused puff of air out of her nose. “You’re probably right. Now _leave_ , I gotta do this or Dr. McLafferty will crucify _me_.”

“I think that statement’s technically sacrilegious, isn’t it?”

“Girl, you didn’t know what crossing yourself was. Get your ass away from my heretical productivity.”

Patterson sighed, accepting defeat. She went to her room, wishing she had some homework left to do. Anything was better than being this _bored_. How could she be bored with a new girl crashing into their lives? Her brain was stupid.

She got on the spinning chair in her room and pushed off the desk to make it turn. It spun around and around—it centered Patterson. If her life were a storm, then this chair would help her remain in the eye. It spun and it spun and it spun and it collected all of Patterson’s thoughts with it. There were five hours left until the five o’clock Sunday curfew. What should she do?

Re-organize her binders? But no, she liked the system they were in right now. Bike down to the library? Nope, it was too icy. Beg her mom to drive her to the library? No, she was busy trying to track down that Oscar guy.

Ugh. Patterson pushed off the desk again.

She could go on a Wikipedia binge about anything regarding religion? No. What about all the possible side effects of drug withdrawal? No. What about sitting here and spinning for the next eternity?

Sounded good.

What felt like only a minute, but was probably a good twenty minutes, passed before someone knocked on Patterson’s door. It was Ed’s rhythm, bum-bum-badabum—when Patterson was ten, she’d gone through a phase where everyone in the family had had to learn their own specific knock pattern. Most of them had stuck.

“Come in, Ed!” she called.

“Having fun?” he asked, watching the way she spun and spun.

“Yep.”

“Should I come back later?”

"Nope. I’m just doing Wednesday’s math homework.”

“Where?”

“In my head.” She grinned when Ed rolled his eyes. “I’m not actually, I did it on the way to the hospital.”

“Show off,” he grumbled, but he was all bark and no bite. “But about the hospital: Mayfair wants me to drop off Kurt’s homework for him. You wanna come?”

“Sure. Is Tasha coming?”

“Nah. She’s behind on her homework.” He hesitated. “Y’know, to come to the hospital you gotta stop spinning.”

“Oh, right,” Patterson said. She hadn’t realized she still was. Kicking at the leg of the desk to stop her motion, she searched around her desk for her wool sweater and pulled it back on over head. It was a good sweater—nice and soft, without a single tag. “Sorry.”

Ed shrugged, a fond smile gentling the curves of his cheeks. “You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”

What did Patterson do to deserve these people?

“Then I think I’m ready to go. Just let me grab my shoes.”

 

Patterson didn’t like the hospital. It was too cold, too sterile to be friendly and not organized enough to be comforting. The smell of new curtains clung to the air, nearly masked by Febreze and bleach. The atmosphere wriggled under her skin, because it just felt uncomfortable. She hoped the lab she worked at when she grew up was much, much nicer.

The room Jane was in was on the second floor, east wing, room 101. The fact that they’d even given her a _room_ was a surprise to Patterson—if she was there so temporarily, why wasn’t she in one of the alcoves with the curtains? But maybe the FBI had pulled some strings, or maybe all those other beds were full. It was hardly Patterson’s place to question it, especially when it meant Jane was in a (marginally) more peaceful side of the hospital. Only one nurse nearly collided with Patterson as she and Ed walked up the corridor.

Kurt saw them hovering outside the doorway, and came out into the hallway so they wouldn’t disturb the still-sleeping Jane. “Hey,” he said to Ed, his voice low enough to count as a whisper. “You seriously brought my homework?”

“Senior year waits for no man,” Ed replied, handing over Kurt’s stained blue backpack. “Ma thought that if you left it to the last minute, you’d just make Patterson do it.”

“Which is probably true,” Patterson said, almost apologetic. “I can still do it if you want, though.”

“I’m good,” Kurt said. He glanced back in the room, his eyebrows creased in concern.

“How’s she doing?” asked Patterson.

Kurt sighed, his shoulders slumping. “She’s okay, I guess. I mean, she’s mostly been asleep.”

Never before had Patterson seen her big brother look so helpless. He was usually the one working to fix every situation, regardless of whether or not it had a solution at all—his drive was to throw himself into whatever his intuition told him was wrong, and not to stop until he physically couldn’t anymore. When Tasha’s biological mother had tried to get her back and Mayfair had chased her across three state lines, Kurt had been on the phone every single day, bargaining with CPS agents three times his age in an attempt to show them Tasha’s biomom’s history of negligence and abuse. He had gotten detention at school for refusing to come back in after lunch because he was on hold with a caseworker, and he’d gotten two more detentions for continuing to make phone calls during detention. He hadn’t cared about the cost, just the reward.

But here, now, in this dingy hospital, Kurt had nothing to do but wait.

Kurt Weller Mayfair, sitting and waiting. What a concept. If anybody had told Patterson a week ago, she would’ve told them to get some higher quality methamphetamines.

She moved forward, opening her arms as invitation for a hug. Kurt’s eyes widened, like he was surprised, but he accepted. Patterson didn’t love Kurt’s hugs—they weren’t tight enough; they didn’t compress like Tasha’s did—but she’d realized that the core of interaction was mutual sacrifice. She could stand one, two, three seconds of hugging Kurt in exchange for making him feel a bit better. He didn’t smell great, but he was solid and stocky beneath her fingers.

“Thanks, Patterson,” he said when they broke off. “That was…” He cleared his throat. “I needed that.”

“You want one from me too?” Ed asked. “Cuz I’ve been told I’m a great hugger.”

Kurt smiled. “Don’t push it.”

“Aw. Have fun with your calc, I hope you die loveless and alone.”

“When did you get so disrespectful?”

Ed raised his eyebrows. “I got so disrespectful when you stopped scaring the shit outta me. Why’d it take you so long to notice?”

“ _Boys_ ,” Patterson drawled, doing her best Tasha impression. They both turned to her, their lips hard-pressed to hide their laughter. “I didn’t really have anything to say after of that. It was just funny because of Tasha, and how she always says that before she chews you out…”

Both of them groaned. “We know,” said Ed.

Before Patterson could reply, a scream erupted from Jane’s room. It was too loud, too loud, and Patterson yelled in response as she clamped her hands over her ears—her eyes slammed shut, her body folded in on itself. There was a word repeated in the cacophony, but Patterson couldn’t recognize it as it bounced around the inside of her brain until she realized she was saying it out loud herself—Marcos, Marcos, Marcos.

She couldn’t open her eyes, not yet, not while there was so much sensory input assaulting her ears. Someone tried to tug on her arm, a concerned female voice was speaking, but Patterson did _not_ want to be touched right now. She pulled away.

Finally, finally, _finally_ , the screaming stopped. Patterson counted to ten in her head before she could open her eyes. Ed was watching her carefully, his brow wrinkled in worry. A nurse stood next to him, mirroring his facial expression.

“What was that?” Patterson asked.

“I think little Jane had a nightmare, hun,” the nurse said. “She’ll be okay now, your brother and Maria are in there talking to her. How’re you doing?”

“I’m okay,” Patterson responded, trying to shake off the last remnants of panic that remained trapped in her lungs. She pasted on a fake smile, but couldn’t bring herself to meet anyone’s eyes.

“Who’s Marcos?” she overheard Kurt ask from inside the room. “What happened?”

“Marcos got shot,” Jane choked out. “He, he…. There was so much blood.”

“Who is Marcos, though?”

Patterson predicted, with a sinking feeling in her chest, what Jane’s next words would be.

“I don’t remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! Here's all the notes I didn't put from the last chapter, plus the ones from this one.
> 
> The title is from Easy Silence by the Dixie Chicks. The last chapter title was from Medicine by Daughter, while this chapter title is from the song Falling by Florence and the Machine because I pretend to be clever.
> 
> Also, sorry this chapter is short! I'm going away to camp for another week and didn't think it was fair to wait. And yikes I'm sorry that a lot of this fic is basically just dialogue.


	3. blow what's left of my right mind

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a medical professional, and I just generally don't know anything about anything. If you do, feel free to stop by and yell at me. Also, thanks to everyone who commented! You guys make me feel like I can actually finish this fic.

“Ma?”

“Come in, Ed.”

It took more courage than it usually did to open the door to Mayfair’s office. That wasn’t to say that it was normally a hard task, but this weekend—this weekend so much had happened, Edgar wasn’t sure if he was okay with it. His feet felt like lead as he approached his mom’s desk. She sat facing the window, still mostly focused on a sheaf of files that lay in piles before her. The grey light from outside sucked the color from the room, playing across Mayfair’s face in harsh shadows.

“Can I talk to you about something?”

She barely glanced up. “Can it wait? I’m busy.”

Edgar took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “I don’t think it can.”

That caught her attention. She pushed back from the desk, turning her whole body to face him. She raised her eyebrows, waiting.

“What’s going to happen with the Jane girl? You’re gonna let her stay with us, and then what?”

She frowned. “What are you asking?”

 “I’m asking what’s going to happen to Jane after you find her family.”

“That depends on the situation. It’s complicated, Edgar, you know that.” Her face was serious, but at least she was listening. “Did something happen today at the hospital?”

“She had this nightmare, freaked out. Started going on about some dude named Marcos. Said he got shot.” At the word _shot_ , Edgar felt his hand move to his shoulder automatically. “She saw somebody get shot dead, Mayfair. Whatever shit she’s involved in, it’s dangerous.”

Her frown deepened as he went on, and at his last sentence he saw her mouth draw into a sharp line. She sat back in her chair, contemplating him. “She saw a boy named Marcos get shot?”

“Boy, man, I dunno.”

“And you think we should stay out of it,” she said slowly.

She had read his mind too well, and he hated the look she was fixing him with now. Mayfair had always been able to predict him better than anyone.

“Patterson thinks you’re going to adopt Jane,” he conceded. They’d had a conversation about it on the way back from the hospital. “But I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“You don’t?”

He shook his head, wishing he had something to do with his hands other than shove them in his pockets. It was a balance between being strong and standing up about this, or being compassionate and letting this happen. He wanted to help as much as the rest of his family did, but not at the cost of what little the five of them had built for themselves.

“Why not?”

“Because we’re not okay!” he exclaimed, feelings that had been roiling beneath his skin exploding out. “Right now, without Jane, we’re not okay. Tasha—I dunno what’s going on with her, but she needs to get her shit together. Patterson doesn’t need a disruption in her routine as big as this, you know that. Kurt’s going to get college acceptance letters in a couple of months, and everyone knows how much of a clusterfuck that’s gonna be when we have to come to grips with the fact that _Kurt’s leaving us_. Ma, we _can_ ’ _t_ adopt Jane.”

Her face stayed carefully blank as she asked, “And you?”

“What?”

“Why aren’t you okay, Ed?”

He stared past her, off to the side, out the window. It was getting darker—the streetlights had just flickered on. If he looked far enough, he could see the edge of Sarah’s house, with it’s cute painted gutter.

“I just want to be happy, Ma,” he whispered. “Why can’t we all just be happy? For once? I want to help too, but…I’m so tired.”

She sucked in a breath—the lines on her forehead disappeared. Mayfair—his _Ma_ —stood and pulled him to her chest, into a tight hug. Her arms wrapped around his midriff, her face tucked just over his right shoulder (he was taller than her, now). They didn’t hug much, not since he decided to start trying to prove his maturity to her, but—God, he missed this.

When they broke apart, he took step back and felt the heat rush to his cheeks.

“I wasn’t going to adopt her,” Mayfair said. “I asked Dr. Borden from down the street if he would consider it.”

“Then why not just tell us?” he asked.

“It’s his decision. I can’t preempt that. And I’m still committed to helping this girl. You were in some ‘dangerous shit’ when we got you out too, if I remember.” She touched his left shoulder, the shoulder that still ached with ghost pains every once in a while. “But if we get in too deep, I want you to come to me again. You hear me? You keep us pointing north, Edgar. That’s what you do.”

 _Pointing north_.

( _Little girls with their backs to doors and whispered promises and torn up books and shivering.)_

“I will.”

“Thank you.”

He offered her a small smile, and she returned it.

“I…I love you, Ma,” he admitted.

“Love you too, Ed.” She cupped the side of his face with her hand—her fingers were warm and dry, and smelled faintly of old paper—then withdrew it. “Don’t forget to put three bucks in the swear jar on your way out.”

He groaned, caught between disbelief and wanting to laugh. “Seriously?”

“I’ll let it slide.”

“Thanks.”

“Get outta here before I change my mind,” she said, sitting back down and staring at her files. “I’ve got thousands of Oscars to sort through in the New York area.”

“I’ll do your homework if you do mine?” he joked.

She rolled her eyes. “No deal. Scram.”

                 

Edgar found himself back in the bedroom he shared with Kurt, even though he was pretty sure he meant to go see if Tasha wanted some help on that English essay. Whatever, he didn’t have the emotional energy right now. He grabbed a comic book and flipped it open, fanning to the page he was at, and flopped down on his bed.

Deadpool made an innuendo. Deadpool killed a dude. Deadpool made another innuendo about killing a dude.

Edgar put the comic book down. He didn’t feel like reading right now.

His conversation with Mayfair had made him feel a bit better, but he still had a reserved tightness in his chest that told him that his earlier uneasiness wouldn’t just disappear. He didn’t have the gut instinct that Kurt did, but his mom was right—his internal compass normally swung true. Right now, he felt conflicted, but all he really wanted to feel was normal, just once. He picked up his phone and opened his conversation with Sarah.

_ed: Hey._

_Rhea Awllers: Hey! How’s it going? I haven’t heard from any of you lately_

_ed: Yeah, things have been busy. I’ll tell you about it at school tomorrow, if we’re still on?_

_Rhea Awllers: Course we’re still on, Ed ;)_

_ed: I missed you._

_Rhea Awllers: It’s been like 3 days_

_ed: So? You’re easy to miss._

_Rhea Awllers: Aww, you’re sweet :’)_

_Rhea Awllers: I missed you too_

There was a pause; Edgar’s gut churned. This small, precious, untarnished thing seemed far too good to be true.

 

_ed: Sar, are you sure about…us?_

_Rhea Awllers: Yeah, Ed, I am_

_ed: I’m fucked up._

_Rhea Awllers: Kurt’s my cousin, Ed. I’m fucked up too. We all are. Do you want to call and talk abt it?_

_ed: No, it’s just a tough night. I’ll talk to you tomorrow?_

_Rhea Awllers: Sure, ttyl_

_ed: :-*_

_Rhea Awllers: :-*_

Edgar let himself have a small, private smile.              

“Ed?” a voice asked from his doorway. “Can…I come in?”

He looked up, and was surprised to see it was Tasha. More surprising, perhaps, was that Tasha had actually asked to come into his room. She was scuffing her socked foot along the hardwood floor, her hands deep in the pocket of her hoodie, her hair pulled back in a messy ponytail with fly-aways curling out at her forehead. For the first time in a while, she didn’t look like she was charging into a conversation with Edgar with her guns blazing.

“Sure, yeah,” he said. “C’mon in.”

She sat down on Kurt’s bed, and, after a pause, turned so she was propping her feet up on the headboard. “Do you wanna hear a joke?”

“My life? Our childhoods? The public school system?” Edgar offered, frowning. “The chicken crossed the road?”

“Hardy-har-har,” Tasha said. “I was going to say my English essay.”

“You’re here to beg me for help?”

It was her turn to frown. “If you don’t wanna, I mean, forget it.” She swung her legs back down and started to get up.

“Hey, no, that’s not what I said. ‘Course I’ll help you.” He spread his hands. “What’re brothers for?”

She smiled, but it was more of a tightlipped grimace. “Cool. I’ll go grab my laptop.”

 _Why didn’t you just bring it in the first place?_ he wondered. Her body language, the trepidation in her voice, her quick attempt to leave, all answered him; she thought he would reject her. And hell, he hated himself for it, but if she’d asked him twenty minutes ago, he might have claimed to be busy and done just that. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help, it was just that he needed some alone time, and that had been scarce.

Tasha came back quickly. “Here,” she said, thrusting the laptop into his hands. “It’s bad.”

He skimmed the essay, making some comments and suggesting some grammatical changes. A few words leaped out at him. “You know,” he said, “I don’t think most teachers like it when you call characters a ‘fog-headed douchebucket’. Or an ‘asshat’. Or a…I don’t even know how to say this. Eee-hoo-e-poo-ta?”

“ _Hijueputa.”_

“Did you even _try_ to write the assignment?”

She scowled, hands on her hips. “Yeah, okay? I did. I did try this time.”

By the looks of it, she actually had. But while the essay wasn’t terrible, it definitely wasn’t worth more than a solid B. She’d started out pretty strong—apparently, the women in _Heart of Darkness_ only mirrored the men’s development and never had any agency of their own—but it was evident she’d gotten frustrated and stuck about halfway through. As the wording got clunkier, the number of insults thrown at Marlow and Mr. Kurtz increased.

“Yeah,” he said. “But if you wanna make Dr. McLafferty happy, then you’re gonna need some revision.”

She groaned. “I know, but I just hate English.”

“Would it be easier if it were in Spanish?”

“No,” she huffed.

“So…you admit that your anger at the English language is misplaced?”

Tasha reached out and hit him lightly in the chest. It was a familiar gesture, though it had become rare in recent years. He had missed it. She only did it with people she felt comfortable with, people she trusted wholeheartedly and didn’t mind bantering with, which really shortened the list to Edgar, Kurt, and, until last year, Dev. But, of course, Tasha didn’t need to know how endearing he secretly found her attempts to subject him to bodily harm, so he hit her hand away.

“I offer to help you, and you’re gonna go and hit me? I demand worker’s protection rights. Where the fuck’s my union?” he complained, making her roll her eyes.

“Please,” she scoffed.

“I–” he began, but he was interrupted by an IM popping up in the corner of her laptop screen.

_randy: we gon skip 2mrw?_

_randy: u cn pay back what u owe_

   

Edgar felt his heart sink like a stone in a clear pond. “You skipping now, Tash?” he accused. “Ditching’s okay, right, as long as it’s English?”

“What?” she asked. “No, I don’t skip, that’s just Randy. How could you even…?”

“Oh, like it’s ridiculous to believe you could skip now? After the way you been acting?”

“The way I been—” Tasha’s temper flared. “You know what, Ed? Fuck you. Fuck you and everything you are. I’m sorry I busted into your temple of morality to ask for help, it won’t happen again.”

“Tasha—”

She put her hands up. Her mouth was a hard line, her brows drawn together, her hands curled into almost-fists—but her eyes. Her eyes were glittering and wet and Edgar _hated this_.

“No,” she spat. Her lip started quivering, but her anger was unmistakable. “I’m sorry. I’m just your no-good little sister, right? Always weighing you down.” She wrenched her laptop out of his hands and headed for the door. She turned back in the doorway. “And y’know what? I wasn’t skipping. I was _trying_ to make you and Mayfair proud. But if everybody already thinks I’m a failure, maybe I should just stop trying and start acting like one.”

She slammed the door.

Edgar’s neck ached from emotional whiplash. He lay down. The back of his throat burned.

God, he just wanted to be happy.

 

 

-

 

 

Borden tapped his fingers against the water cooler in his office.

He couldn’t believe he was considering this.

 

 

 -

 

 

Forty-eight hours. That was how long Kurt had been at the hospital. Forty-eight hours of antiseptic and saline and the beep-beep-beep of machines. Forty-eight hours of taking care of cold compresses and rubbing backs and talking softly to a girl who may or may not be listening. Forty-eight hours of back-cramps from hospital cots and learning all the nurses’ names and giving up on smiling entirely. Forty-eight hours of leaving only to empty his wallet at the deli across the street or go to the bathroom.

Forty-eight hours of waiting.

In that time, Kurt felt like he’d aged a good three years. Jane was so small in that bed, so bundled, just laying there swathed in white sheets and misery. It was hard to watch, but Kurt didn’t really have a good track record of doing things that were easy. He’d made a commitment, sometime in the dark around hour twenty-seven, that he was going to do the best he fucking could to look after this girl. If that meant, eventually, that he should leave her alone, then he would. Until then, he would sit solemnly at her bedside, the centurion that he always pretended to be when he played make-believe as a child.

They didn’t talk much. Talking required lucidity, and that wasn’t something that Jane initially had much of. But after the nightmare, after Patterson and Edgar came by to drop off Kurt’s homework, they shared one conversation.

It started quietly.

“You’re still here,” Jane said, staring out the window instead of looking at Kurt. Her voice was flat. “You didn’t leave.”

“No.”

“Why not?” She no longer sounded frightened. “You don’t know me. I don’t even know me.”

What must that feel like? Kurt wondered. To be so forcefully divorced from your sense of self by something so out of your control, to be drugged so heavily that you lose your own identity? He’d be so angry. From the looks of it, Jane was starting to unearth that rage as well.

“Yeah, but I know what being lost is like,” he replied. “It fucking sucks. And the only thing I found that makes it better is not being lost alone.”

Jane frowned, her lips twisting. “But…”

 “But what?”

 “But why? Why would you even care if I’m lost?” she pushed. She still wasn’t looking at him. Her fingers were curling in her lap.

Kurt paused, taken aback. “I care…because, uh,” he squinted, “lost people have a habit of staying lost unless someone finds them.” _Bones in a backyard, handcuffs and jail cells and visitations, playing in tree forts and a girl who won’t ever come home_. “And by the time someone finds them, normally they’re already gone.”

Jane shifted uncomfortably. “So I’m your, what, your project? The girl you could save? Your damsel in distress?” Her voice rose as she spoke. “What if I’m always lost, Kurt? When do I count as gone? If that happens,” she spread her arms, her hands shaking, and finally stared him in the eye, “are you just gonna leave me here, another failure?”

She was sweating, small streams trickling down her temples, ringing the collar of her hospital gown. She was probably going to have to undergo another painful half hour of vomiting pretty soon. But right then, right in that very instant, she was more vocal and outraged than Kurt had seen her be. Fear had been canceled out of the equation, leaving room for fury and a premature sense of betrayal. Her questions, however, weren’t without basis.

What if she never got better? What if she got set up with some nice foster family (he wasn’t wishing she could stay with them forever, he wasn’t, that was _creepy_ , goddammit Kurt), and went to school, only to be offered a chill pill by some stoner in the right wing bathroom? What if she couldn’t get clean? What if Oscar took her back? What if she froze to death next time, and there was nothing Kurt could do to stop it?

What if her life never stopped being an unending succession of pessimistic what-ifs?

“I don’t pity you,” Kurt said—(lie). “I’m not here because I want someone to make me feel better about myself,”—(truth). His tone was the tone he used with Patterson and Edgar when they were skittish, his full-on Big Brother mode, as he promised, “And I’m not quitting you unless you tell me to. Are you telling me to?”

Her gaze was fractured, a million fragments of lives never had or people forgotten clouding her eyes. It hurt almost physically to meet them. (They were also very, very pretty eyes. Kurt kicked himself. Totally inappropriate.)

“No,” she demurred, her eyes dropping after a minute. “I’m not. It’s, uh, nice to have someone stay.”

Kurt nodded. “Yeah.”

And like that, Jane deflated. “Sorry for getting angry,” she said.

“Don’t ever apologize for getting angry,” he advised. “It’s hard to set your limits without anger.”

She looked at him carefully. “You get angry a lot, don’t you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Only at people who deserve it.”

“That’s a lot of people.” Her lips quirked. It was dark outside—her face looked warmer with the yellow streetlights playing off it. “Maybe…you’re not always right.”

Kurt frowned, filing that thought away for a different time. “Maybe.”

“Do you get angry at your mom?”

“Sometimes. More when I first came to live with her, though.”

“How did you end up with her?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem like a…am I allowed to say ‘typical situation’ when I don’t remember what normal is?”

He shook his head. “Nope.”

She winced and stared back at him with those stupid, gorgeous green eyes. (Kurt was fucked. Totally fucked. This was so not okay.)

“I’ll tell you anyway,” he said. “If you want.”

Jane nodded, then blinked to regain her bearings. “Yeah,” she said.

“Well, um,” he began, and decided he wasn’t ready to start at the _beginning_. He might never be ready to start at the _beginning_. “Mom died when I was little. Dad got tossed in jail when I was eight.” Jane didn’t frown, didn’t ask _what for_ , and she might not remember much but he wondered if this kind of story was normal for the life she had with Oscar. “The uh, agent who charged my dad—that was Mayfair. We grew on each other, I guess. The whole thing was…messy. And I had an aunt, and a cousin one year younger than me, but Aunt Carol was struggling to find work and support her own daughter by herself, so she couldn’t take me in. She wanted to, but…Mayfair saw that it would run her to the grave. So she stepped up.”

“And that was allowed?” Jane interjected.

Kurt shrugged. “Probably not. Mayfair’s fine with bending the rules as long as it’s for her people.”

Jane’s lip ticked up at the corner. “Her people?”

“Yeah.” Kurt smiled. “That’s what she calls us.”

“I like that.”

He cleared his throat. ”So, uh, that’s how I became her kid, I guess. That plus a lot of paperwork. It helped that we used to live in an apartment complex two blocks down from Aunt Carol and Sarah, so we were close. We’re still close, actually, just down the street.” Kurt offered a grimace. “Sorry, that wasn’t a very interesting story.”

“It was good,” Jane assured him. Her cheeks still looked a bit green. “Thanks.”

Kurt nodded, trying to think of something else to say. He was saved by a nurse coming in—Maria. He looked up.

“Hey, kids,” Maria said. “I have to give Janie her evening medicine. Is that okay?”

Kurt turned to Jane, who gave a very aggressive pair of thumbs-ups.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Maria chuckled. She handed Jane a small paper cup and a pill. Jane frowned at it. “It’s a pill, sweetheart, not poison. We’re testing to see if you can stomach it so we can send you home.”

At the word _home_ , Jane’s grip on the paper cup crinkled enough that water dribbled down one side.

“Just take it, sugar,” Maria said. “Pop the pill and have a sip.”

Carefully, Jane did as she said. She didn’t choke, vomit, or come to close to dying in any other way. Victory. She smiled.

“Ooh, she can _smile_ ,” Maria cheered. “That’s a sight for sore eyes.”

Jane’s head ducked bashfully, just enough for her hair to swing in front of her face. Kurt grinned.

He felt a buzz in his pocket, and pulled out his phone to see a text from Mayfair.

 

_Mayfair: I’m coming to pick you up._

_Kurt: What?_

_Mayfair: You have school tomorrow, Mr._

_Kurt: But I can’t leave Jane._

_Mayfair: She can survive without you for one night. This is non-negotiable. Be ready to go._

_Kurt: >:(_

_Mayfair: Frowny face me one more time and I’ll whoop your ass into next Sunday._

_Kurt: Sorry._

_Mayfair: Just be ready._

 

“Mayfair says I have to go home tonight,” he apologized to the room at large. When he looked up, it was to meet Jane’s panicked gaze. She bit her lip.

“You’re leaving?”

He felt like a terrible person. “Yeah. I’ll be back, though, tomorrow after school, first thing. I promise.”

“People don’t come back,” Jane said softly. Maria let out a small, sad tut, and came around to the other side of the bed to hold her hand.

“ _Padanella_ ,” she said. “There are people that leave us and people who don’t. There are those who abandon us when it gets rough. There are those who need to leave just to save themselves. There are people who will stick by us until it destroys them.” She put her hand on Jane’s chin and tipped it up. “Look at that boy who’s sat next to you for the past two days. Do you really think he’s just going to walk out?”

Jane’s eyes met his, and Kurt tried to pour all the stoic dependability he could into his gaze. He never wanted to look away, not from this girl, not from this meteor who had crashed into his life and left a crater on his consciousness.

Eventually, Jane pulled her head away from Maria’s fingers and nodded. “Yeah,” she said. “You _should_ go home. Sorry.” A sly smile flickered back onto her face. “Besides, you’re starting to smell.”

Kurt felt the blood rush to his face. “That’s it,” he replied. “You’re never allowed to hang out with Tasha. Me and Edgar won’t get another minute of peace in our lives.”

Maria glanced at the clock. “If your mamma’s waiting for you, then you should probably get moving, kiddo. She don’t look like the type of woman who likes to be kept waiting.”

“She’s not,” Kurt grumbled. He stood, feeling pins and needles run up his left leg. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Jane.”

“She might be coming home with you tomorrow,” Maria corrected. “Things are getting mighty packed around here.” Her pager beeped. “Speaking of which, I should get back to my rounds. Bye-bye for now.” She rose and bustled out, giving Kurt the opportunity to fit in one more awkward wave.

“I’ll come back,” he vowed.

Jane nodded. She was staring out the dark window again.

With a final, “Night,” he turned followed Nurse Maria down the hall. Mayfair was waiting for him a hallway away from the lobby, but it appeared she’d been cornered in a logistical conversation with Dr. Miyata. Seriously? Kurt could have spent another few minutes with Jane.

“–just lack the capacity to keep someone who has such a good alternative support system,” Dr. Miyata was saying. Under the glare of the fluorescent lights, she looked exhausted. “We just had a huge influx of patients—there was a pileup and a drive-by tonight. Our ER is overflowing, and we just can’t afford to keep her. You know how it is, Bethany.”

Mayfair nodded, her forehead lined in a frown. “I do. We can take her home tomorrow, if you get us a list of instructions and dosages and that kind of thing. I’ll write it down as FBI-necessitated protection. If anybody questions it, I’ll say her guardian threatened the life of an FBI asset.”

Dr. Miyata let out a sigh of relief. She put her hand on Mayfair’s elbow briefly, just for long enough to express her gratitude. “Thanks, Bethany.”

“Thank _you_ , Emily. How much longer do you have on your shift?”

“Not long, thank God.”

“Good,” Mayfair said. “Take care of yourself, okay? You look ready to drop, and I do _not_ want to be caught up in that.”

Dr. Miyata gave a chagrined smile. “I will. Take care too, okay?” She noticed Kurt for what seemed like the first time. “And take care of your boy here, too. He’s a good egg.”

Mayfair reached out and clapped Kurt on the shoulder. “Yeah? You don’t have to live with him.”

Dr. Miyata smiled. “Don’t let your mom give you a hard time,” she said to Kurt. “You really impressed everyone here.”

“See you, Emily,” Mayfair said, looping her arm around Kurt’s shoulders and pulling him away.

“See you Friday, Bethany. You’re still coming, right?”

“I’ll try.”

“Good night, then.”

“Night.”

Outside the hospital was bitingly cold. The snow had turned to rain, shining in sheets as it pounded down on the parking lot, giving everything a slippery yellow glow under the streetlights. The snow was melting, but Kurt would bet that it would start falling again soon enough—New York weather just liked to make sidewalks the most dangerous, slick things they could possibly be. Mayfair tucked Kurt to her side like she could shield him, though he was taller than her by at nearly a foot. He zipped up his jacket and humored her.

“So, _Bethany_ , huh?” he asked as he scrabbled for purchase on the wet car door handle. His hands were numb, but he managed it eventually. “Where do you know her from?”

Mayfair joined him in the slightly warmer interior of her trusty, beat-up minivan. “Book club,” she said tersely.

“Oh. ‘Lesbians with children and a love for fine alcohol’ book club?”

Mayfair rolled her eyes as she twisted her key in the ignition and turned on the seat-warmers. “Do I go to any other book clubs?”

“No.”

“Then there we go.” She pulled out of the parking lot carefully. “Now I’m going to have to warn you, you missed dinner.”

“Okay, I can make some Top Ramen,” he said, shrugging.

“No you can’t,” she admonished. “You can have a nice balanced meal of leftovers from yesterday. With vegetables. Asparagus.”

“I don’t like asparagus.”

“Too bad. It can go in one end or the other—you choose. I can make either happen,” she threatened. “You’re seventeen. Start learning to eat your greens.”

Kurt sighed in defeat.

“Dinner was also…tense.”

“What?” He frowned. “Tense how?”

“Tasha and Edgar are apparently giving each other the silent treatment. They won’t even look at each other. I feel like they’re eleven again.”

“They didn’t fight when they were eleven.”

Mayfair’s preoccupied frown told him she was well aware of that. “Patterson’s fine though. Thank God for that girl. Chattered away about some science project she’s about to start.”

Kurt leaned his head against the glass of the window. He stared out, watching the buildings blur by with general disinterest. His siblings could be so _annoying_ sometimes. Didn’t they realize there were bigger problems out there? Little girls freezing in alleys? Murdered boys dancing in dreams? And they had to go and make it all harder for no reason?

“It’s a rough world, isn’t it, Mom?”

She sighed. “Oh, kid. Do you even have to ask?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jane's coming home this chapter, I say to myself, and then proceed to write another chapter where Jane doesn't come home. Don't worry, plot is coming. A lot of plot. Painful plot.
> 
> Chapter title is from the Future Starts Slow by the Kills.


	4. your scars are healing wrong

Tasha couldn’t get out of bed.

It wasn’t normal before-school exhaustion. She didn’t simply want to roll over and hit the snooze button. There was no resigned part of her mind that she could rely on to propel her out from under the covers. She just couldn’t move. Her very _bones_ ached. They were anchoring her to the bed—they were so heavy, anvils fashioned into marrow and calcium. What did it matter if she just lay there for eternity? She could just die, rot into the sheets and the mattress. School wasn’t worth this.

She briefly registered Ed coming in at some point, but he just tossed a pillow at her and didn’t say anything. He wasn’t saying anything to her because she was a fuck-up whose life plan was to rot to death in her pyjamas.

She couldn’t move.

Eventually, about half an hour after her alarm had gone off, she managed to swing one leg out of bed. And then the other. And then she—slowly, painstakingly—sat up. Lowered one foot, and then then other, onto the carpet. Reached under the bed and pulled out some warm beer. Took a few gulps to try and feel something. Only felt disgust, because warm beer was disgusting. Put the beer back. Managed to push herself to her feet and stumble towards the bathroom.

“Aren’t you running late?” Patterson asked, sitting—fully clothed—on the toilet seat, her mouth full of toothpaste, a book open in her lap. “Kurt had a shower before you.”

Tasha gave an incomprehensible mumble, pulling closed the shower curtain and running the water to let it warm. She waved Patterson away from the toilet and began to strip off her sweats. Patterson turned back to the sink to spit out her toothpaste, used to sharing bathroom time with her sister.

“You should probably hurry up,” Patterson advised. “I estimate you have approximately twelve minutes before Mom gets on your case. She doesn’t want to drive you to school if you miss the bus _again_.”

Tasha flushed the toilet in reply. After sticking her hand in to test the water temperature, she tossed her t-shirt to the floor and got in the shower. Patterson went quiet.

With a stream of water on her back and neck, Tasha was able to form a full thought for the first time that morning. Had Patterson been reading a book while she brushed her teeth?

“Is your bag packed?” she called, her voice coming out rough and scratchy.

Patterson startled. “Huh? Oh, uh… Yeah, I think.”

“You eaten breakfast?”

“Um…”

Tasha sighed, reaching down to squirt a bit of shampoo into her palm. “Go eat breakfast, Patterson.”

There was a sigh, and then she heard the door shut.

Ten minutes later saw Tasha dry and dressed in jeans and an overlarge sweatshirt, staring blankly at the binders and notebooks crammed haphazardly in her backpack. She wished she cared enough to organize them—she wished she cared enough to do something other than throw the papers with that little black _A_ into the trash. What did good grades matter? No college would take someone like her.

“Tasha!” Mayfair called. “You have two minutes until the bus!”

Shoving her laptop into her backpack and zipping it tight, Tasha took a look at herself in the mirror on her closet door. Dark circles ringing the bottoms of her eyes? Check. Pimples at the edge of her nose? Check. Complete and utter lack of motivation to do anything regarding her appearance, paired with crippling self-consciousness? Check, check, and check again.

Tasha was rocking this today.

Rushing down the stairs, nearly tripping on Ed’s football gear and Kurt’s gym bag, Tasha skidded into the kitchen to find the rest of her family having a pretty ordinary, organized morning. Kurt was sipping from the grumpy cat mug Patterson got him for Christmas, leaning against the counter with his brow furrowed. Patterson had claimed her spot the table and was perched like a bird on the chair, spooning cereal into her mouth with a pen in her other hand and a Sunday crossword in front of her. Sitting across from Patterson, shadows under her eyes and phone pressed to her ear, was Mayfair. She raised her eyebrows at Tasha when she came in.

And then, of course, there was Ed, leaning against the fridge eating yogurt with a spoon. He was the only one who had no reaction to Tasha’s entrance. He very pointedly _didn’t_ look at her, focusing on scraping the last remains of his yogurt out of the container.

Tasha looked away. Just seeing him ignore her made her chest hurt, even if she could admit that she was also ignoring him. And that the whole situation—and everything else—was all her fault.

“We should go,” Kurt said after an awkward pause. “Bus’ll be here any minute.”

No one moved.

“Patterson,” Kurt tried. “You ready to go?”

Patterson looked up from her crossword. “Three-letter football Hall-of-Famer named Hein?”

“Mel,” Ed suggested. Patterson nodded her thanks and scratched it in.

Mayfair hung up her phone call, looking around at her kitchen full of children sternly. “Why are you all still here?”

“We’re leaving now,” Kurt grumbled. He grabbed his backpack off the floor and swung it onto his shoulder. “ _Right?”_

Tasha reluctantly shuffled forward, finally spurred to action by her brother’s glare. Patterson put down her pen and folded the crossword until it could fit into her bag. Ed followed their lead, chucking his yogurt into the trashcan across the room and joining the small parade of teenagers into the hall.

“Love you, Mom!” Patterson called.

“Love you, Patterson,” Mayfair replied.

“See you, Ma.”

“See you, Ed.”

“Bye, Mayfair.”

“Bye, Kurt.”

Tasha didn’t say anything.

The door opened, blowing a gust of icy wind onto the carpet, and the four of them crunched out into the snow. Tasha was grateful to her thick boots for keeping most of the cold out, but they weren’t enough to stop the flurry that stung her cheeks and fingers. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. Her breath puffed in the air, but it hardly lasted a second before the wind stripped it away.

“Knew it would start snowing again,” muttered Kurt.

“Is it so bad?” Patterson wondered, staring up at the drab buildings around them. Her blue eyes glittered with awe. “I mean, we’re walking to the bus in one of the most famous cities in the world. Thousands of fractals are falling from the sky around us. The universe is a constantly expanding, so there is an exponentially large chance that other life exists. We’re all alive, together, and I think that’s pretty beautiful.”

A taxi sped past, spraying up a small wave of slush that splashed over and into Patterson’s boots. She froze, took a deep breath, and stared up at Kurt with an exaggerated deadpan expression.

“I take it all back,” she said.

Kurt laughed the carefree laugh that Patterson brought out in him. Ed cracked a grin. Tasha could recognize that it was funny, but all she could muster was a small smirk.

Maybe she should just lay down in the snowdrift? She could go back to sleep. Maybe go to sleep forever. Die. That sounded nice.

Wait, what?

The small church on the corner opened their doors for Monday mass, and Tasha felt a lump rise into the back of her throat at the sight. She turned away, pulling her hood up over her hair.

They arrived at the bus stop at nearly the same time as the bus itself pulled up, belching an unhealthy amount of smoke and letting off small bursts of heat that curled away as quick as they arrived. The paneling of the ad on the side was peeling at the corners, the original lettering almost indecipherable under the grime and graffiti. It wasn’t technically a school bus, but most of the occupants were hollow-eyed students; Tasha couldn’t help comparing it to the barge of the dead, off to spirit them away to eternal damnation. Joe, the old bus driver, was definitely withered enough.

Once on the bus, the siblings all split. Tasha didn’t need to watch to know that Kurt would head over to Allie, Ed would sit a row behind Sarah (how Kurt hadn’t caught on yet was a mystery for the ages), and Patterson would slide in next to her nerd friends. She didn’t need to watch, but she did anyway—call it lonely masochism or something equally pathetic. Tasha listened to them all laugh from her seat at the back of the bus, and wished she felt something other than empty.

For a moment, she thought she heard a boy’s giggle beside her, the ghost of a wet willy tickling at her ear. But she turned, and there was nothing. There was never anything. Her chest ached: there would never be anything ever again.

           

Her day didn’t get better from there. Or maybe it did—it was all a matter of perspective, Tasha supposed.

“Yo, T,” Randy called, his hands rough as they landed on her shoulders. When she shrugged him off, he shoved them into his pockets and didn’t lose his skeezy grin. “You wanna skip next period and have a hit?”

Tasha grimaced. “I don’t do drugs, Randy,” she reminded him.

“No?” he asked. “Just enough alcohol to kill a horse, then.”

She turned away. There were only a few more minutes of lunch left—only a few more minutes, and then three more classes, and then freedom. “I’m not interested.”

He snorted. “If you’re gonna lie, at least try and convince me.”

“I don’t skip.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Fuck off, I said I’m not interested.”

Randy’s hand dipped into the lining of his coat, pulling out a dented metal flask with his initials on the side. He dangled it in the air in front of her, shaking it so she could hear the contents slosh. “You sure?”

As they turned the corner into a deserted hallway, Tasha felt her resolve waver, then vanish. She grabbed the flask out of his hands and took a gulp, coughing when it burned the back of her throat. The way the tequila seared down her esophagus, settling into a fiery ball in her stomach, felt wonderfully familiar.

She hated the smug expression that Randy wore. “See?” he said. “I can fix you up, Tash. Whatever you need, I got it. I have another bottle in my locker, even. C’mon, it might make you feel something.”

 _Feel something_.

She thought of Ed’s face, accusatory and disappointed, staring through her instead of at her.

“Fuck it,” she said. “Sure, I’ll skip half. Say I had a stomach ache or some shit. Not like school matters, anyway.”

“Right?” he agreed, taking the flask and tossing back a swallow. “Like, these fuckheads already got their opinion of us. They’re not gonna change it because we get an A in pre-calc.”

The hallway began to fill, and the two of them were forced to walk against the tide of students as they made their way downstairs. By the time they reached Randy’s locker, the bell had rung and the doors were all closed.

He pressed his other bottle of booze into her hand, and she could feel the chill of it where it had been stored in the miniature cooler. The cold wet her palms, slipping promises of distraction and fullness into her mind. She took a quick pull as Randy led her into the dark of the janitor’s closet. There was barely time to process before he was tracing his hands along the curve of her neck. The touch felt so _wrong_.

“Of course,” Randy said, his voice low and husky, “this does mean you owe me. I don’t buy for free.” His hip rode up along the flat of her back as he turned her to face him.

Tasha flinched so hard it was nearly a convulsion. “I’ll pay you,” she spat, disgusted. She gave him a hard shove. “In money.”

He scoffed, raising his hands. “Fine by me, as long as you come through. Don’t know what you’re so scared of, though. I’m a good time.”

“You’re repulsive.”

“And maybe you’re a dyke like your mom.”

The dig hit harder than it should have, burying itself in Tasha’s chest and piercing through tendons and organs alike. She made herself stand tall against it—she swallowed the hidden shame she felt whenever she looked at Jenna Reese’s legs, the fear that had ridden into her bones, the secrets she kept trapped behind her tongue—and she bit back, “I knew you were dumb, Randy, I didn’t know you were homophobic, too.

“I’ll remind you who has the fake ID, T,” he countered. He waggled his eyebrows. “No me, no drink.”

_Except for the beer I’m stealing from my brother. There’s always that._

Tasha took another small swallow from her bottle and tried to forget about the whole situation. Forgetting worked, didn’t it? Drink enough, and it could just…all disappear. No ghosts, no siblings, no girl in a hospital, no janitor’s closet, no Tasha. No problem.

Shit _._ Maybe the therapist Mayfair had made her see when she was eleven was right about those avoidance issues.

“I don’t wanna turn into this person, Randy,” she sighed. “The drinking, the lying, the debt. I’ve seen where this road goes.”

Randy laughed. “You’re already on this road, T. You been on it for a while. But if you’re having guilt, then hey, fine. Not my problem. You pay me for the past couple of weeks, we can split.”

Tasha grimaced and took another gulp.

“Look, I ain’t your shrink. You having issues, I don’t give a damn. You want something to soften the blow, though? A good time?” He tapped the flask. “I’m your guy.”

“I should get to class,” Tasha said. She pushed the bottle into his chest. “Thanks for the tequila. I hope you choke on the worm.”

Randy wolf-whistled, his eyes lingering appreciatively on her lips. “Feisty.”

She made a contemptuous noise and slammed the closet door behind her.

 

Mayfair was in the parking lot after school, which was a rare and pretty unnerving experience. Sitting behind the steering wheel, a steely contradiction of minivans and pantsuits, she cut an intimidating figure. Tasha popped a couple of breath mints and regretted the tequila that lingered on her back teeth.

Already in the front seat was Kurt, his face set in the expression that had landed him the role of Grumpy in his eighth grade production of Snow White. Patterson was in one of the second row seats, twisting a stim toy in her hand, clicking the pieces together and then separating them again.

“What’s up?” Tasha asked, sliding the door open and climbing into the far back seat.

“We’re going to pick up Jane,” Mayfair answered, not turning. “She’s coming home with us tonight, just for a couple of days.”

“Cool.”

She buckled her seatbelt and tried to rub the chill out of her fingertips. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted Ed at the edge of the parking lot, talking to Sarah with his hand on her shoulder. Unfortunately, Kurt saw them at the same moment.

His voice was more of a growl as he asked, “What’s Edgar doing with Sarah?”

Tasha thought fast. “She slipped on the ice,” she invented. “He was passing by and helped her up. You know Ed, always gotta be so damn helpful.”

Kurt frowned. “I thought you were pissed at him.”

Oh god, was she ever. When she saw him, her chest tightened. Hurt roiled in her stomach in uncomfortable coils, burning up and down her esophagus. He had so little faith in her that he thought she _wanted_ to be as screwed as she was, as miserable as she was. He didn’t care that she was so _goddamn_ tired all the time, every day, nor that she was slipping into a hole she didn’t think she could get out of—he didn’t even care enough to ask. No, he was too busy with Sarah and being the fucking prodigal son.

So yeah, Tasha was pissed at Ed. But she also still loved him (too much, far too much; how come she couldn’t feel any feelings but the inconvenient ones?), and she didn’t want Kurt to find out about Sarah and blow up at him.

“Just telling you what I saw,” Tasha replied.

Ed crossed to the car—after tucking Sarah’s hair behind her ear in a gesture Tasha hoped Kurt missed—and got in.

“We’re going,” announced Mayfair, pushing the gearshift into drive. “Buckle up.”

“What’s the plan, Mom?” Patterson asked.

Mayfair looked into her rear view mirror and pursed her lips. “We’re going to pick Jane up from the hospital. We’re gonna take her home, we’re gonna make her feel _welcome_. She’s staying with us for a while, until we can find her a more permanent situation, and then she’s being placed there. Nothing more to it than that.”

“A…more permanent home?” Tasha’s words tangled in her throat. “You mean, put her into the system?”

“Yeah, but in a less precarious situation. I’ve reached out to a few connections. I’m tryna get her with someone looking to adopt.”

“But you might just…send her away?” interjected Kurt. “We can’t do that.”

Ed cleared his throat.

“We’re not going to abandon her, Kurt,” Mayfair said carefully. “That’s not what we do. But we have to accept that we could not be the best home Jane can have. She might even be going back to Oscar and her family, if he actually turns out clean. I know it’s hard, but until we know more we can’t promise anything that could turn out untrue.”

Patterson took a breath and let the stim toy tumble from her fingers onto the floor. Her fingertips started tapping together—pointer to thumb, middle finger to thumb, ring finger to thumb, pinkie to thumb—and then reversed directions. Tasha was used to seeing the tic when Patterson worked on a hard puzzle, but it occasionally appeared when Patterson was trying to figure out what she was feeling.

“D’you want me to go more detailed about the plan, Patterson?” asked Mayfair, pulling onto the freeway. “What to expect?”

“Yeah, thanks.” _Finger to thumb, finger to thumb, finger to thumb._

“Okay. Your room’s bigger than Tasha’s, right? If it would be okay, I was thinking we could stick her in there with you.”

Patterson nodded. “Sure, we can try.”

“Good, then we’ll keep to the meal schedule on the fridge, and follow our family schedule as best we can—there’s not gonna be any slacking on chores,” she warned. “This girl’s been through a hell of a lot, so we’re aiming for some bit of routine she can hold onto. Nobody’s gonna ask her about her life before this unless she brings it up first. Everyone’s going to be polite.” Tasha could have sworn Mayfair looked at her as she said that. “We want her to feel comfortable. So there’s gonna be no fighting, no yelling, no explosions—verbal or chemical—and everyone’s gonna treat her with the utmost respect. Understand?”

“Yeah, Ma,” said Ed.

Patterson and Kurt nodded.

“Tasha?”

Thoughts were scrambled in Tasha’s head—fragmented memories and confusing feelings and the buzzing feeling at the back of her mind. She heard her own mouth open and say, “Yeah, ‘course.”

“Good,” Mayfair said. “I expect it to stay that way. And that means you and Ed have to play nice, okay? I don’t know what’s going on with the both of you, but it’s put on hold while Jane’s in the house.”

Tasha turned to stare out the window. She didn’t quite feel like she was inside her own body; something else was controlling her actions and words. It wasn’t like she was fully cut off from herself, but she was just separate enough for the distinction to be jarring.

“Understood?” Mayfair’s voice was sharp.

Somehow, Tasha jerked her head into a nod.

“We’re here,” Patterson said, her volume a bit too loud. _Finger to thumb, finger to thumb, finger to thumb_. “Should we pick up our new sister?”

The car collectively sucked in a breath.

“She’s not your new sister, Patterson,” Mayfair corrected. (“Uh-huh,” Patterson mumbled.) “She’s a girl who needs a little help.”

Tasha’s heart leaped into her throat, choking her. “What, like I was?” she asked.

“You needed more than a little help,” Ed grumbled, and then looked instantly contrite. “Tash, I didn’t mean…”

Unable to breathe, Tasha bit her tongue and nodded at the back of the car seat. Her stomach churned in discomfort, emotional pain with some tequila thrown in. Be _normal_. _Normal_. _Normal_. She would help Jane without getting attached and she wouldn’t talk to Ed because he hated her. Distantly, she could hear Mayfair berating him, but it didn’t matter. It was true. No amount of help was going to save Tasha—she was drowning, drowning, six feet under in a sea of liquor with no lifeboat and no stars to guide her—so what was even the point? She was just going to be normal for Jane, then move on with her life. ( _Or death_ , a little voice in her mind whispered.)

“Let’s just go,” she said, pasting on a small smile. “Don’t want to keep anybody waiting.”

 

-

           

“Thank you so much for this,” Jane said quietly, swinging her feet onto the tile floor for the first time in days. “You don’t have to.”

“We know,” said Kurt, the crease between his brows deepening as she swayed. “We want to. You deserve some time to get on your feet again.”

“Literally,” his sister (Tasha?) added. She moved closer and offered her shoulder. “Let me give you a hand.”

Gratefully, Jane looped her arm around Tasha’s neck. The girl was smaller than she’d expected, under the snow-dampened hoodie and curls. The places where her jacket met Jane’s skin sent up a scurry of goosebumps. She smelled like dollar store deodorant and breath mints, but beneath that lay a musky tang that Jane could swear was familiar. She stopped herself from trying to place it. _None of your business, Jane._

Nurse Maria and Dr. Miyata were standing on either side of a wheelchair, smiling proudly as Jane and Tasha tottered towards them. “Well done,” congratulated Maria as Jane was lowered into the seat. She put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “I’m really proud of you, _bella_.”

“I told her we could just do a normal wheelchair transfer,” Dr. Miyata stage-whispered. “But Maria’s never listened to me.”

Maria waved her hand in disparagement, though her smile gave her away. “The doctor’s always fussing,” she complained to Jane. “I just wanted you to get to stretch those little legs of yours.”

 _“You_ could stretch your legs back to your rounds, if you’d like to whine anymore about your boss,” Dr. Miyata said wryly. “Professionalism is still valued in some cultures, you know.”

Jane felt a rush of warmth in her chest—the swooping feeling of happiness, not the burning of bile. She fought back the urge to laugh as Maria stuck out her tongue. Adults, playing like children; how strange, how foreign. Jane—and all the children she could remember from back home, based on the fleeting hazes she grasped between dreams—were adults at ten or younger, doomed to age faster than their lifespan attested.

The idea that childhood could be reclaimed was a surprisingly optimistic one.

“Here,” said Kurt, sliding off his black coat. He held it out to her. “It’s cold outside.”

Leaning forward, she pulled it on over her hospital gown. It was a challenge to get the second sleeve on, but Maria gave her a hand. The coat was big on her, and still warm from his body heat—she shivered, realizing how cold she’d been without it. She gave Kurt a small, trembling smile, and he retreated.

“Can we take her home now?” Tasha asked, hoarse, looking more at her mother than at either of the women. She was still close enough to the wheelchair for her jacket to brush up against Jane’s side as she turned. “Hospitals aren’t really my thing.”

“Yeah,” Patterson agreed quietly.

“Sure,” said Mayfair. She had been watching the perilous journey to the wheelchair unfold with quiet amusement, but now she reached out and reached an arm out and touched Patterson’s elbow gently. Patterson smiled. Mayfair’s attention returned to the matter at hand, and she asked, “Are you ready, Jane?”

Jane took a deep breath. “Yeah.”

“You want Kurt to wheel you out?”

Jane looked to where Kurt and Edgar were standing. Kurt nodded almost imperceptibly, his shoulders loosening, his fists opening at his side. He didn’t quite smile, but the idea was there.

“Okay,” said Jane.

Dr. Miyata and Maria moved out of the way so that Kurt could take the handles. Like a parade procession, they began the walk to to the elevator.

Jane didn’t like the perspective from a wheelchair. It was lower than she was used to, and to be pushed made her feel smaller, less in control. She wanted to tell Kurt to let go, to let her wheel herself down the hallway, but she understood that that went against hospital policy. She contented herself with gritting her teeth and eavesdropping on the conversation behind her.

“—so much, Emily, it really means a lot,” Mayfair was saying.

“Just doing my bit,” replied Dr. Miyata. “If anything, I should be thanking you. It’s nice not to see a kid get shoved right into the system.”

“Still, I know drug cases don’t normally stay so long in general care.”

“We make room, and I’m not the one paying the bill. Have you managed to foot that one onto the system?”

“I’m figuring it out.”

“Speaking of figuring things out, what’s your plan for emergency fostering? How long until you can find placement for her?” Dr. Miyata paused. “You’re not taking this one, too.”

Jane’s pulse rung in her ears. This was her _future_ they were discussing, and it was completely out of her hands.

“We haven’t found her family yet; there may be no need for placement,” Mayfair said, curt. “But I’ve asked some people if they’d be comfortable taking her, in case.”

“Have these people got foster licenses?”

Mayfair’s silence was answer enough. Jane felt her stomach twisting itself into knots. She didn’t want to be sent away, not unless her destination was back home.

“Bethany, that’ll take at least six months to go through,” said Dr. Miyata, her voice dropping. It wasn’t low enough—Jane could still hear everything clearly. Sickeningly clearly.

“I have connections,” Mayfair argued. “I can rush the paperwork.”

“And the homestudy? And the background check? And the judge?”

“Emily, stop. I'll work it out.”

“Look at that!” Tasha interrupted. “We’ve reached the elevator.” She leaned over and pressed the button, angling herself so she was staring behind Jane, probably at Mayfair. “I would hate for this conversation to have to continue somewhere else.”

“She’s right,” sighed Dr. Miyata, “I should get back to work.” Hands landed on Jane’s shoulders and squeezed briefly. “See you, kiddo.”

 _“Ciao, bella_ ,” Maria said, moving into Jane’s line of vision. She blew her a kiss. “Good luck. I better not ever see you again, okay? Stay safe.”

Jane heard their shoes clip-clopping on the linoleum as the two walked away. The elevator dinged.

Mayfair took a deep breath. “Who wants to stop for a snack on the way home?”

 

The Mayfairs’ house wasn’t particularly big. Jane couldn’t tell what area of the city they were in—she couldn’t even tell what _borough_ they were in—but the house could have fit in quietly almost anywhere. There was that nondescript air to it: the peeling blue paint, the brick steps, the worn brass numbers above the door, the houses sandwiching it on either side. It didn’t have much to speak of in way of yards, but it did well with a hastily cleared patch of snow and an abandoned shovel sticking out of it. The windows boasted three narrow stories, each framed with differently colored curtains.

On the whole, it was utterly unremarkable. But as Jane hobbled up the path, hanging onto Kurt’s arm (Kurt’s _muscled_ arm), she spotted four handprints pressed into the concrete. One was bigger, an adult’s hand, while the other three looked fragile and small. Upon closer inspection, she spotted a fifth handprint, faint, red, and painted on. The five added a whole other dimension to the home—they made it seem lived in, alive.

Jane loved the place on sight. She had to remind herself that she had her own home—darkness and pills and a mattress and Oscar—and that she was only staying here temporarily. She couldn’t trust anything. (God, though, she wished she could.)

The inside was even more incredible. The kitchen table was scratched and burned and loved, the hardwood floors cared for, the kitchen cupboard ajar and full of cereals and snacks. There was a color-coded chore chart pinned to the refrigerator, and a whiteboard with a family schedule hanging on the wall. It was more domestic than Jane had ever imagined it would be, especially after being introduced to Mayfair and her little herd. They didn’t strike Jane as the PTA type.

Kurt helped Jane into a chair. She looked up at him, grateful, unsure what to say. She settled for an obvious question. “What borough are we in?”

“Queens,” said Kurt. The rest of his family pulled up seats at the table and sat, but he remained standing with his hand resting on the back of her chair. “Why? Do you remember where you’re from?”

The name flew to her lips faster than she could think it, faster than she was conscious of. “Brooklyn,” she said. “I’m from Brooklyn.”

“Can’t even remember her name, but she remembers she’s from Brooklyn,” Edgar remarked, smiling.

“Typical,” Tasha added. The two looked at each other, then glanced away, smirks dropping.

Kurt didn’t seem to notice. He just kept his eyes on Jane’s face, and she couldn’t decipher his expression but she _liked_ it. “You escaped without the accent, huh?”

She shrugged. She couldn’t remember—she didn’t _want_ to remember. “I-I guess.”

Tasha shook her head. “No way you’re cocky enough to be from Brooklyn. I’m calling bull.”

“Hey now, Tasha,” Mayfair interrupted. “We can respect everybody. I don’t think somebody from the Heights is in any position to judge other people on bluster, do you?”

Tasha’s face went stony as Edgar and Kurt oohed. Patterson, who had been staying pretty quiet, spoke up, “Hey, Mom, aren’t you and Kurt from the City?”

“Yeah, we are.”

Patterson grinned, her eyebrows high. “So why do we have any Queens pride at all? I’m from Albany, and none of you are from here.”

“Wait, wait,” Edgar said, looking around dramatically, emphasizing his sarcasm. “People actually live in Albany?”

Patterson giggled, and Jane found herself smiling along.

“Okay, enough chitchat,” Mayfair decreed. “Patterson, do you want to give Jane the tour?”

“Sure, Mom.” She took a breath. “So my room’s just up the stairs—Mom’s the only one with a room on the bottom floor. I guess it’ll be a bit hard to climb up until your legs realize they aren’t in a hospital bed anymore, but Tasha or I can help you anytime.” Patterson brushed her bangs out of her eyes, enthusiastic now that she had something to say. “Do you wanna come up now, and I can lend you some clothes? It’s pretty rough to stay in a hospital gown for extended periods of time. Did you know that one woman’s making an entire line of robes for kids who have chronic illnesses, because the effect of staying in the same mandated article of clothing is so demoralizing for some people?”

“Um, sure, I’d like to change,” Jane said, feeling a bit overwhelmed. She’d thought Patterson was one of the quiet siblings—evidently, that wasn’t the case.

“Tasha, why don’t you go with Patterson,” Mayfair suggested. “Boys, you can help me with chores.”

Edgar groaned and Kurt’s jaw tensed. He reached out and settled a hand on Jane’s arm, before thinking better of it and pulling it back. Rising, he moved to consult the chore chart. Jane switched her attention back to the girls next to her.

The two were dynamically opposite from each other, in both temperament and appearance. Tasha was sullen—and had been, come to think of it, since Mayfair made a crack at her about being from the Heights. Her dark eyes were ringed with shadows, and her hair was wavy and thick down her back. Her cheerful sister, by contrast, had piercing eyes and a small blonde ponytail that had trouble restraining her bangs. Jane’s fingers itched to pick up a paintbrush (could she paint?), to mark down the distinctions and the colors, to preserve this moment, this feeling—she smelled acrylics already, but she couldn’t tell if it was memory or desire.

Both girls had been nothing but kind to her so far. She wished that could last.

“Let me help you up,” Patterson offered, moving to take Jane’s arm around her shoulder. Jane had to restrain herself from acting on impulse, from reflexively slamming the heel of her hand into Patterson’s chin. She took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet.

The room spun, dizzying her and making her clench her jaw against a wave of nausea. A hiss of air escaped from between her teeth.

“You good?” Tasha asked.

 Jane managed a grimace. “Yeah.”

“Should we begin our campaign up the stairs?” asked Patterson.

“Campaign?” Tasha scoffed. “What are we, running for president? Hate to say it, but I think Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump got us beat there.”

All of Tasha’s words made sense to Jane individually, but strung together they gave her pause. “What?” she asked. “Isn’t Donald "I think I am a nice person" Trump the one with that big tower in the City?”

“Um, yeah,” said Patterson. “He is. But he’s also been running for president for the past six months? Thinks he can deport everyone who isn’t white? Wants to build a wall?”

Tasha muttered something in Spanish that didn’t sound too complimentary.

“I-I, um, I guess I missed that bit.” Jane pressed her lips together. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Patterson said. She helped Jane up onto the first step. “Anyway, I didn’t mean campaign as in political campaign, Tasha, I meant like an RPG campaign.”

Tasha raised her eyebrows, but said nothing. Patterson paused, waiting for an interjection, and when none came she frowned. Silence stretched.

Suddenly feeling like an intruder, Jane averted her eyes and appraised the ascending line of framed photographs that decorated the left wall along the stairs. The first was a picture of a young Kurt, solemn and grim-faced, tucked into the crook of the arm of a Mayfair with much longer hair. They stood in an official-looking building with dark wood paneling behind them, and both were dressed to the nines in matching suits. The words _Adoption Day_ were scrawled at the bottom.

The next photo was of Patterson and Kurt, playing a spinning game in a park. The camera had caught Kurt mid-spin, blurry with motion, while little Patterson was halfway toppled onto the grass. Both were grinning.

“Cute, huh?” Patterson asked, studying the picture over Jane’s shoulder. When Jane jumped, nervous, Patterson smiled. “It’s alright, go ahead, keep looking. We don’t mind.”

After another couple laborious steps, Jane could make out the third photo. This one, unlike the last candid, looked like it had been staged at by a professional photographer. In it, Little Patterson, now a couple of years older and wearing a cheerful Christmas sweater, sprung up out of a cardboard box wrapped like a present, her hands curled into little claws. Next to her, a nearly-teenaged Kurt pretended to look scared. Jane’s lips curled—he was wearing antlers. On the other side of Patterson, a young Edgar with a ribbon wrapped around his head was giving her a hilarious side-eye. Mayfair stood solidly behind Patterson, dressed in a tree costume; she even had tinsel wrapped around her now-short hair. Her smile was small, but proud.

“I like that one,” Patterson said fondly. “Sears Christmas.”

“Where’s…” Jane glanced down at Tasha, who was two steps behind them. “Where’re you?”

Tasha pursed her lips. “I don’t come in for another…year?” she said. “Patterson, what Christmas is that?”

“Twenty-ten.”

“Yeah.” Tasha nodded. “Almost a year.”

There was only one more photo left—the rest of the staircase was adorned with a collection of childhood paintings of varying degrees of skill. The last photograph depicted all of the children and Mayfair, Tasha included; it was simpler in layout than the others, and candid, but maintained the same lighthearted atmosphere. The four kids sat side by side on a low brick wall, each with a cone of ice cream dripping onto their hands. All five were staring at something to the left, something unseen by the camera—whatever it was, it had even skinny, hollow-eyed Tasha grinning. The sun was at that point where everything was bathed in golden light, romanticizing all their summer clothing in slashes of shadow.

A lump of emotion sprang to the back of Jane’s throat, but she swallowed it down.

“C’mon,” prompted Tasha. “We should probably make it up the stairs before Patterson goes grey.”

By the time they reached the second floor landing, Jane’s forehead was beaded with sweat. A chill cut through her hospital gown, sending goosebumps down her back, and her muscles cramped with fatigue. Her stomach was beginning to roil again. Patterson, still supporting most of her weight, led her down the hall to a doorway with a collection science posters plastered on it. Or at least, Jane thought they were science posters—they didn’t look like any sort of science she knew, so she couldn’t be sure.

 “Welcome to House Patterson,” said Tasha. “Don’t touch anything, or you might not get your hand back.”

“Hey!”

“Okay, you might not get your fingers back.”

“She’s joking,” Patterson reassured Jane. “I think.”

Inside, the room seemed fairly put together. More posters covered the walls, most featuring video games, others showcasing what looked to be medieval TV shows or nerdy puns. A shelf of board games stacked perfectly along half of the right wall, while the other half held rows upon rows of books, of every size and variety that Jane could imagine. Light blue bedsheets, strewn about carelessly, matched the paint on the walls. The desk, on the left side of the room, held carefully organized binders as well as a scattering of papers and pens.

Once again, Jane’s breath was stolen by how cared for, how lived in, this home was.

“Here we go.” Patterson let go of Jane, leaving her swaying, and bent and slid a trundle bed out from under hers.

“Wow,” Tasha said quietly. “We haven’t used that in…years.”

Patterson blinked forcefully, suddenly emotional in ways that Jane couldn’t understand. “Yeah.”

“Didn’t know you still had it.”

“Well I wasn’t going to get rid of it, not after what it went through with us.” Patterson’s attempt at a smile wobbled. “Anyway, Jane, I was thinking you could sleep here?”

“Yeah,” Jane answered. Quite honestly, she could sleep there at that exact moment. “Thanks for doing…all this.”

Patterson waved her thanks away. “It’s no problem. I’m just gonna go grab you some…” She slipped out the door, not bothering to finish her thought.

That left Tasha and Jane standing awkwardly in her bedroom, eyeing each other with unease.

“So.” Tasha’s face was passive.

Jane shifted from one foot to another. “Um.”

“You, honestly, look about as shitty as I feel right now,” said Tasha. Her eyes gentled. “You wanna take a nap?”

Jane did, but she didn’t feel comfortable enough in this room yet to even consider sleeping. “Uh, I’m…I’ll be okay.”

Tasha nodded. “Took me a while to feel safe here, too,” she admitted.

Jane forced a thin, uncertain smile.

“You got any questions you want me to answer? See if it makes you more comfortable?”

She thought on it for a second. “Is Patterson, um, Patterson’s real name?”

Tasha’s eyebrows leapt halfway up her forehead. “Yeah, if you don’t want to die a slow and painful death.”

Funnily enough, that didn’t make Jane feel more comfortable.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Tasha. “It’s pretty simple. I’m Tasha, not Natasha, Patterson’s Patterson, call Ed Edgar till you get to know him better, and Kurt’s just Kurt.”

“Yeah,” Jane said after a pause, her voice dry. “So simple.”

Tasha smirked. “So you do have a sense of humor.”

“It’s not really feeling like it, right now,” Jane admitted. “But I think so.”

“I feel you,” said Tasha. “I’m wiped.” She stumbled slightly as she moved to sit on Patterson’s bed, running a hand down half of her face and yawning. When she saw Jane still swaying in the middle of the room, she nodded her head towards the trundle. “You can sit too, ya know.”

Jane shuffled over and collapsed, stiff and dizzy. “Thanks.”

Patterson came back in before Tasha could say anything else, her face glued to her phone, a fitted sheet tucked under her arm.

“Please tell me you’re not still playing that fucking cat game,” Tasha groaned.

“Huh?”

“Oh my god, you are.”

“Hey! Neko Atsume is great! It’s like Tamagotchis without the stress of accidentally killing pets.”

“Please don’t start.”

“But look, Tubbs is here, and there’s Snowball and Smokey and Pepper and—“

“Patterson, you're  _allergic to cats_.”

"I'm not allergic to pixels."

"You sure? You've been looking a little pale lately."

Patterson, still fixated on her screen, stuck her tongue out.

Jane stared between the two in bewilderment, completely lost. Tasha glanced over and made eye contact—she seemed to be conveying some fond combination of ‘what are we gonna do with this girl’ and ‘can you believe what I have to put up with’.

Not having an answer for either of those questions, Jane shrugged helplessly.

“Oh, whoops,” Patterson said, looking up at her as if realizing she was there for the first time. “I forgot to give you clothes.”

And yeah, Jane found herself acutely aware that the only things she was wearing were her gown and Kurt's jacket.

“You two can handle that,” Tasha decided, standing up. “See you at dinner, kids.” As she was about to leave the bedroom, she looked back at Jane. “And I was serious. Don’t mess with Patterson’s stuff. She likes her systems.”

“Systems are important,” Patterson agreed, setting her phone down on the desk. “Now, what’ll fit you?”

 

-

 

“Yeah, the usual, please? Oh, you’re not Klahan, sorry. Can I have three railroad fried rices, one shrimp fried rice, one chicken pad thai, and one…what’s the blandest thing you have? Yeah, one bowl of steamed rice and some chicken satay. And some roti to share? Sounds great. My son’ll be by to pick it up in ten. Yeah. You too. Thanks.”

Mayfair set the phone down with a sigh, pressing her thumbs into the tops of her eye orbits to try and soothe the headache beginning to pound into her skull. After a couple breaths, she looked back up at where Kurt was doing his homework in the corner of her office. She asked, “Can you go pick that up?”

“Yeah,” he said, paging through a textbook. “I’ll leave in a minute.”

“It’s dark out, and icy.”

“I’ll be careful.” He looked up and met her eyes, steadfast and assuring. “Don’t worry.”

“You don’t like driving on ice.”

“So? You don’t like sorting through fifty million Oscars, but that’s how you’re spending your Monday night.”

To that, Mayfair had no answer. She stared back at her monitor, clicking through pages of missing girls—how did New York have so many of them? Payton Muret, Rebecca Short, Mae Johnson, Gabby Lopez, Elizabeth Wang, Anna Brixton, Carrie Stratford…the names began to blur together, face after face scrolling by. None of them were Jane.

Mayfair hadn’t decided whether or not that was a good thing, yet.

Her phone buzzed. She looked at the caller ID—Robert Borden. Well, this could either go really well, or really badly. “Hello?”

“Hi, Bethany?”

“Expecting somebody else, Borden?”

“No, just…ah. Erm, well, I was thinking about your offer.”

“My…you mean, thinking about adopting Jane?” Mayfair asked, waving to Kurt as he tried to slip out of her office quietly.

 “Yes. And I’m prepared to go through with it, I think. But I’d like to meet her first, before I submit anything. There’s no point in me adopting her if we turn out to be socially incompatible, or if I see that she needs support that I’m not able to give.”

Mayfair fought off a smile. “But you’re willing to take her? If everything works?”

“I am.”

“Why don’t you come by Wednesday?” Mayfair suggested. “Gives the kid a couple of days to try and settle in, adjust and all that. You can have dinner with us, or lunch if you just want to get to know Jane.”

“I’ll have to check my schedule,” said Borden, sounding relieved. “But that sounds excellent. Should I bring anything?”

“Her stomach’s still a little screwed over because of the drugs, so we’re starting with simple and bland. Maybe some books or something she can call hers?”

“Giving her ownership of something, brilliant. Alright, I’ll be there Wednesday, and I’ll call you with the details. Have a great night, Bethany.”

Mayfair shut her eyes and tried not to huff out a laugh. For such an incredibly intelligent man, he was slightly clumsy when it came to his own life situations. “Night, Borden.”

He hung up.

By the time Kurt returned with their takeout, Mayfair’d decided that a TV dinner would probably be easier on everyone than an actual sit-down would. She called Tasha down—who came, grudgingly, looking wan and grumpy—and attempted to get Patterson’s attention by texting her multiple times until she gave up and clambered up the stairs and knocked on her door.

“We’re coming!” Patterson reassured her. “Be down in a minute!”

Six minutes later, she and Jane made their way downstairs. Ed was on their heels, blushing at his phone.

“Glad you could join us,” Mayfair said drily. “Everybody, couch time.”

Mayfair had already claimed the armchair, so it took a minute for all the kids to rearrange themselves around the sofa. Patterson, who didn’t like feeling crowded, pulled off some cushions and set herself up on the floor with her back against the arm. Tasha claimed the spot on the couch directly next to her, while Ed relegated himself to the opposite arm of the couch. That left Jane and Kurt to sit in the middle, after Kurt began to hand out all the different meals.

“This looks good,” Jane said quietly, though she’d gone a bit green at the gills. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank us,” Mayfair replied. She was still stuck on how _small_ Jane looked, in a pair of Patterson’s biggest sweatpants and a NASA sweater. It was like looking at a person and being able to see the immensity of the universe surrounding them, drowning them, instead of their life and skin and bones. A bitter taste rose to Mayfair’s mouth—no kid should look like that, not ever. She tried to change the subject. “What do we want to watch? Make it just one show, you all have homework.”

There was some bickering, but they eventually settled on some feel-good ABC Family drama. The soundtrack was upbeat, the warm colors painted the walls, and Patterson had no complaints to blurt in the middle of an emotional moment about the science or logic of the plot. The Thai food got passed around, everyone eating more than they probably should, fighting over the last piece of roti or the last prawn. It wasn't long before everyone slipped into a dinner-induced trance. By the twenty-minute mark, Jane was already nodding off on Kurt’s shoulder. 

Feeling full and comfortable, Mayfair checked her emails on her phone.

_Johnson:_

_Ma’am, there’s some news, but I don’t want to interrupt dinner with your family. Call me._

Without pausing, Mayfair dialed her right-hand agent. “Talk to me, Johnson,” she ordered, her voice low. Tasha looked up, concerned, but Mayfair shook her head.

“We identified him, ma’am,” said Johnson. “Oscar Gagnon. He’s nineteen, lives above a tattoo parlor in Fort Greene. Has legal custody of a fifteen-year-old girl. His neighbors all say he’s been MIA for at least the entire weekend.”

Mayfair’s eyes found Jane, wistfully watching the way she looked so peaceful in sleep. Her head was pillowed in the crook of Kurt’s neck, her fingers curled in on her chest. The onscreen sunset gentled her face in shades of gold and orange. With a deep breath, Mayfair asked, “Anything else?”

Johnson paused.

“He’s wanted for murder.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terrible! That's really my only excuse for why this took so long. And, unfortunately, I can't promise the next one will be faster—school is kicking my ass. But I hope you guys like it! Chapter title is from One More Time With Feeling by Regina Spektor.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on tumblr @ohfucktherewashomework.


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